


never be

by JunkerJackrabbit



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Christmas Special, Consensual Kink, Disaster Lesbians, F/F, Fluff, Smut, Swearing, Terrible People, Wild theories about Junkertown
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-02 07:00:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 31,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17259686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JunkerJackrabbit/pseuds/JunkerJackrabbit
Summary: Christmas Special for: the right kind (of bad love)Established relationship.Jacqueline "Jack" Vargas and Moira O'Deorain visit Ireland for Christmas.





	1. i built a house on solid ground, and every day you come over and try to knock it down

**Author's Note:**

> Christmas special for my main fic: the right kind (of bad love).
> 
> This took forever to write. Multiple chapters incoming as I finish editing them.  
> Massive thanks to rawrkie for terrible ideas and putting up with hours of plotting bs. <3

She should not be this nervous. Not by half. Jack keeps telling herself that, tapping out a slow count to ten on her outer thigh as she sits in the back of a cab on the way through the Irish countryside. She told herself the same thing at the airport when she'd disembarked the transport, fresh from a week and a half in Junkertown with her family and a small Talon get-together that her partner in crime missed due to an outstanding conference. She told herself again when the driver took an icy curve in the road a little too fast, winding down into Wicklow after what seems like the third or fourth delay since she arrived, all due to weather. 

Story of their lives, really, she muses as they wind up the old country road toward the farmhouse in the distance, taking in the hushed winter scenery, the pleasant contrast of whitewash an old river stone, thatch that construct the building in the distance. She can see the dim glow from within, the gold that shimmers through the windows into the winter night, the festive lights hung within growing brighter the nearer they come. Her heart is beating a little faster, anxiety swiftly on the uptick.

Jack could pin down a dozen reasons why. It's been a few weeks since she's seen Moira, not a matter of their own devizing, but simply a circumstance that had been unavoidable with last-minute scheduling in Oasis, a Talon mission gone sideways, and her responsibilities in Junkertown contrasted with the other woman's similar obligations to the Ministry board and Inner Council. She won't lie and say that that doesn't get her on edge a bit. To be honest, she gets right crook about it after about four days apart, and it's something she's gotten significantly _less_ accustomed to over time, as there's been more overlap in their activities.

But the brief distance isn't really it. Not if she's being true to the heart of it. Mostly, it's that after...God. Three years now? She's headed down the winding drive toward the farmhouse in the distance, in the heart of winter in Ireland, just outside of Dublin, to meet Moira O'Deorain's family for exactly the first time. Ever. Moira met her family three months in. Hell. Moira had a crash course in her entire family _and_ her ex-girlfriend within the first three months they were seeing one another.

She's heard stories about Moira's brothers, some about her mother, but meeting them in person? That's a wholly different animal. Especially given the common consensus the world around about Junkers. That'll be a fun hurdle, she imagines, bouncing a leg in jittery fashion as the cab pulls to a halt. What do they know about her already, she wonders? That she was raised in Junkertown? That she used to run with the Queen?

Are they intensely private about some matters, as Moira is? She's willing to bet every last one of them is tall, freckled, with fiery hair like some sort of futuristic Weasely, and makes a mental note as she tips the driver handsomely and steps out of the car into the bitingly, bitter cold winter air, not to mention that to the other woman's family. 

It's colder outside than seems humanly possible, her breath clouding in the air with every exhalation and stinging in her lungs like a crackle of frost on the inhale. She focuses on something easier to comprehend - her hatred of winter - as she trudges around the back of the cab to grab her duffel from the back. Clad in a long-sleeved shirt with a vividly red hoodie _and_ a leather jacket over it, the thick scarf that she purchased at the airport, she wishes desperately that she invested in some mittens. Not even leggings and joggers are keeping her legs warm, and her leather boots weren't made for the snow. Luckily she won't have to be out in it that long. 

She's dimly aware that her fingers are trembling a little. Not entirely from the cold. Maybe they should be. Her teeth are certainly chattering as she makes her way up the steps onto the porch and knocks thrice on a wooden door hung with an impressively festive Christmas wreath, hoping that whoever is nearest the door answers it quickly. The farmhouse is a lot bigger than she imagined it. Larger even than Moira's house in Oasis. Certainly a lot bigger than the tin trailers that dot the base of the Junkertown cliffs by any conceivable reckoning. 

It appears festively decorated even on the outside. Fir branches and garlands, the softly-lit white of Christmas lights, a massive tree that she can see through a gap in the curtains as she knocks a second time, a little louder than the first. 

When the door pulls open at long last, she finds herself in the familiar position of looking up, up, up at a pair of bespectacled and decidely freckled features, the man standing there infinitely taller and impossibly lanky. About what she expected, his wire-rimmed glasses giving him a bookish look, and blue eyes meeting her dark ones with surprise. One of Moira's brother's, certainly, his fiery hair streaked with silver at the temples.

Bemusement touches his features for a brief moment as he meets her gaze, though a broad smile curves over them a moment later, his voice pleasantly warm as he asks, "Lena?"

Calling over his shoulder without confirming, he all but shouts into the house, "Em, honey. Lena got here early!"

God. They all have the same fucking accent, too. She's not sure why that surprises her, but it's low and it lilts, and it reminds her of another one that carries with it a hint of whiskey and smoke, murmurs in her ear in the dark. That's why it takes her a minute to parse what he's said before she retorts aloud, "What, mate?"

If she wasn't already wholly out of her comfort zone, if not real fucking confused, she certainly is when the taller man wraps her in an abrupt hug and she stiffens up like a fucking board as he confides overfondly, "I'm so glad you could make it. My Emily's told me so much about you."

"Mate? Mate, look. I'm not-" Jack is cut off suddenly when another, far less accented voice sounds from a woman around her age who appears to have bolted into the foyer at an almost breakneck speed at the news. She's cute. Red hair, warm brown eyes. Moira's niece, she thinks? She remembers Moira talking about her niece Emily.

"Uh...Dad?" those whiskey brown eyes open a little wider, a little embarassment perhaps for her father's sake or Jack's evident on features that lack what she's starting to place as a distinctly O'Deorain sharpness. "That's not Lena. You must be..."

"I'm Jack Vargas," is what she interjects with, holding her arms out a little to break the embrace as inobtrusively as she can and get a little bit of space between them. She really only succeeds in being scrutinized at arm's length as one of Moira's brother's looms over her. With a half-smile, she asks, "You mind, mate? I'm fuckin' freezing."

"Bullshit," the taller man observes, his deeply blue eyes narrowed faintly in thought from behind his spectacles as he looks from her toward Emily to accuse in a fond voice, "Ha ha. You and your aunt are very funny. Bloody hilarious."

Her dark eyes settled to Emily's somewhat warmer ones, Jack arches a brow and then settles for what would, in the Outback, be the Vargas solution to the problem. She flashes him a warm enough smile, leaning forward to call loudly into the house, "Oi, babe?"

Emily seems to catch her drift as she fails to make any progress into the house, craning around the doorframe to call in tandem, "Aunt Moira?"

Moira's niece. Of course Moira's niece would be her age. Brilliant.

"What are you on about?" Thank God. That familiar voice sounds from the sideroom, and not a few seconds later, while her teeth are still chattering a bit on the doorstep, the devil herself appears. Looking...surprisingly relaxed.

Warm even. A hint of colour along those cheekbones tells Jack fair enough that she's either been laughing or drinking or both, and her fiery red hair is disheveled, coppery hue cast with gold around the ends where it's falling into vividly mismatched eyes. They snap up toward her without hesitation, a sharper intonation used thereafter, "Bloody hell, Finn. Are you going to _let her in the house_ or are you intent on letting her freeze to death on the step?"

"Honestly, the state of you," falls from those lips next, more than a little pointed in that lilting cadence as the taller woman skirts around him at the door and catches Jack by the front of the jacket to simply pull her into the house. The door clicks shut, and then then she's drawn further forward.

Long arms waste little time once she's dropped the duffel bag onto the mat near the door, winding around her snugly to draw her in, the geneticist's head tucked over hers as the tall gentleman still near the door points first at Moira and then at his daughter, asserting with conviction, "I wasn't born yesterday and I'm not falling for this shite again, you two."

" _Dad_ ," Emily all but groans in response, pulling her comm out of her back pocket to flick through what Jack has to assume are pictures. "Lena is _British_ , not _Australian_. And she's not going to dress like a Junker just to pull the wool over your eyes." There's the hasty tacking on of, "Not that there's anything wrong with that."

Moira is - thankfully - ignoring him at the moment in favour of her. Which suits her just fine. That lanky frame is warm, carrying the fragrance of burnt amber and bergamot, a little hint of woodsmoke, as sculpted, subtly freckled features look down at her in the amber light. The voice is a low lilt, one that murmurs altogether fondly at her appearance, "Hello, rabbit." 

It takes significant effort for Jack to look up, mostly because her cold countenance was starting to warm where she'd tucked it in the crook of the taller woman's neck, but she does. She can't help a little grin at the soft bickering that's stricken up between father and daughter beside them, and fights the urge to sneak her frozen fingertips under the taller woman's cardigan to warm them up as she teases, "I knew you were trouble. _Youngest sibling_." 

There's that familiar smirk, the one that curls up the corner of the other woman's lips just a fraction, a little mischievous this time and more than a little smug. Jack watches as Moira's mismatched gaze lifts to meet Finn's pointedly, a perfect brow arched before it shifts back to hers. Those lips meet hers shortly afterwards, and this time they are warm and soft, probably because hers are still cold from being outside, but the hint of whiskey and mint is still there. Still lingers pleasantly afterwards. 

"Mm. A girl could get used to that," Jack murmurs near the corner of Moira's lips thereafter, thinking about stealing another kiss. She does, places a little nip to the lower one for good measure, then confides at noticing they're still being observed, "You want me to break out my ID, mate? Say something unrepentantly Australian to prove my identity?" 

Her smile a little cheekier, she quips, "Vegemite. Omnium. _The Scrapyard_." 

Finn looks more than a little red about the ears now, but that's alright, because a husky chuckle escapes Moira at that and she missed that sound. A hint of unforeseen mischief bleeds in, and Moira drawls out simply, "I don't think that will be necessary, _Lena_." 

" _Aunt Moira_ ," Emily laughs out at that, sounding equally amused and exasperated as she finally manages to pull up a picture and show it to her father. "This isn't Lena, Dad. I swear. I swear on Gran's old bible." 

"You're going to give him a complex," Jack observes with a murmur of laughter to her tone, her fingertips sneaking under the hem of the cardigan to come in contact with warm, freckled skin. 

A little flinch is felt at that, the taller woman's hands finding their way around her wrists to pull them back, though it isn't all a loss. Her hands are held together, captured within Moira's grasp as the other blows on them to warm them, confiding before rubbing them briskly as if to bring a little more heat to them still, "I will have none of that until you are much warmer, thank you. Come in near the fire, rabbit." 

And then there are slender hands helping her out of her jacket, not that she needs it, a kiss placed atop her head before it's taken into a coat closet. 

At her question of, "Where should I put my boots, babe?" it seems as if Finn starts to snap back into it, realization starting to dawn on his features along with a little bemusement that the pictures his daughter is showing him are in fact the real Lena, and that the Junker near his sister is not. Moira is setting scuffed leather boots on a mat in the coatroom to dry when she hears him observe more than a little slowly to Emily, tapping the screen as he does, "This is Lena?" 

Another tall, lanky creature scuffles in from outside at that, a scarf drawn up around the lower half of his face as he moves toward them to shuck his coat as well, snow melting in his short, red-gold hair as he announces, "Shoveled to the barn and put the horses in for the night. It's coming down in heaps." 

Jack rubs her hands together to warm them a little more, an involuntary shiver running through her at the cold air that gusts into the foyer once more; her teeth chatter a little bit as Moira's hand comes to rest on the nape of her neck and the taller woman guides her into a sitting room. It's the nicest family house she thinks she's ever been. Looks something like the glossy pictures out of a Christmas advert. Warm, honeyed amber walls and dark timber, with garlands of fresh fir and red ribbon in the rafters, stockings hung on brass hooks near the most decorated tree she's ever seen. 

An antique nativity rests upon the mantle, framed with wooden carvings of reindeer and well-framed portraits of a variety of similarly copper-haired and freckled individuals, sprigs of holly and ivy. The fire crackles merrily in the hearth, emanating a pleasant warmth and the subtle scent of woodsmoke above cinnamon and spruce that seems to permeate her surroundings. 

She's drawn over toward the end of the soft, cocoa-coloured couch nearest the hearth and curls into a seat there quite comfortable given the pleasant warmth radiating from the fire. Next to the arm of the couch, a small table is laden with things familiar to her: an unfinished glass of amber whiskey on a coaster, a dog-eared copy of Dracula atop which a set of familiar black glasses are folded, a parchment-wrapped stick of peppermint candy, which means that Moira is attempting not to smoke around her family. 

_Which is cute, really._

Jack picks it up, turning it over in her fingertips before meeting Moira's gaze with a little smile. She might have something to say about it even, perhaps would speak it, if she weren't currently occupied by the warm, welcoming kiss that the taller woman has leaned down to give her. 

If they were home, this might go differently. It might go like their first actual holiday had. She might wind her fingers into that fiery hair and draw the freckled woman down onto the couch to while away the night, drowsily talk until dawn thereafter, fall asleep to the sound of low, lilting Gaeilge in her ear. That was their first Christmas. At least until Olivia had crashed through the living room in the early afternoon in pursuit of the stocking hung on the mantle for her. 

Instead, she finds herself reluctantly allowing the other to draw back, if only slightly, fingertips releasing the light grasp they had on that cardigan. That voice is as low and lilting as ever as Moira confides to her, "I should inform my mother that you have arrived. She wished to make your acquaintance." A thumb grazes just beneath her lower lip, "Would you care for anything from the kitchen while I do so? Last I was aware, Angus was in the midst of making cocoa. It's been a dreadfully festive affair." 

Vivid in the warm light, scarlet and blue watch her from behind coppery lashes. She has no success in fighting the little curl of a smile down when it touches the corner of her lips, but clicks her tongue to the roof of her mouth lightly before teasing Moira softly, "You know what I want." 

There's another, lighter kiss at that, though it's chased by a gentle nip to her upper lip. When she reciprocates, her fingertips twitch at the collar of the taller woman's sweater briefly, trying not to seize ahold of it proper, and she grazes her teeth over Moira's lower lip in turn. There's a murmur against the corner of her mouth then, as pleased as it is decisive, "Stop that. It will be difficult enough knowing you must be down the bloody hall for the week." 

"Down the hall," Jack snorts softly at that, dark eyes glittering in the firelight. "Yeah. Right." With no less amusement, she teases, "You going to get me that cocoa or not, gorgeous?" 

A thoughtful hum sounds at that, Moira straightening to rake a hand through short, fiery hair, though the cooler hand tucks a knuckle beneath her chin to tilt her features up slightly. With conviction, a taloned nail tapping lightly to her jaw once, twice, the taller woman asserts, "I suppose. Though you are becoming dangerously spoiled." 

"Am I?" Jack asks in response, the corner of her lips curling faintly. She knows exactly what she's doing, as certainly as she knows that she shouldn't be doing it. Looks up through dark lashes to ask coyly, "How dangerous are we talking?" 

Dark eyes shift to the curve of Moira's lips and then back up to meet a mismatched gaze, and she asks entirely too smoothly, "Venice dangerous?" 

That makes the touch to her jaw a little firmer, a bite to the taloned nails that rested lightly there a moment before as Moira warns smoothly in turn, "Careful now, rabbit." 

A smile curls slowly further over her coppery features, the Junker murmuring back, "I'll come with you. I'm warmer now. And who knows what will happen if you leave me to my own devices. I'm fresh out of Junkertown." 

The touch to her jaw recedes and Moira steps back to allow her to stand, an arm draping around her shoulders to draw her to the taller woman's side, even as hers comes curved about Moira's waist 

It's comfortable, warm, quiet as they make their way toward the kitchen down the hall. 

It's interrupted by the soft crinkling of parchment as she uses her free hand to unwrap the peppermint that she stole off the end table as they walk further into the house and toward the kitchen. 

"That isn't yours," Moira remarks in that rolling, green waves on stone cliffs voice, an accent thicker now that she's home in a way that Jack loves. The arm around her shoulders pulls a little closer, and that voice murmurs in her ear, "You are being a dreadful little brat today, did you know that?" 

"Am I?" She asks innocently enough, making eye contact with the taller woman before purposefully biting off one corner of the end of the stolen confection. A laugh escapes her as the remainder of the red- and white-striped stick is taken away from her, the parchment adjusted around the end before it's tucked into Moira's pocket. "Maybe I'm acting out because I missed you. Maybe it's just finder's keepers." 

There's a little scoff at that, and she can't help but laugh again, thumb brushing along Moira's side as they draw into the kitchen. It's cream-coloured walls and smooth, grey stone countertops, rustic furnishings set with brass and copper. She loves it, down to the snow-covered barn dimly-lit, visible through frost-limned windows in the distance. 

At the stove, a red-hair man with a wiry build, not quite short but not as tall as the remainder of his siblings. That must be Angus. The freckles and the sharp contours of his face are the same, the look of intensity that crosses them as he stirs the copper pot in front of him on what looks to be a wood stove. It smells like cinnamon, chocolate, maybe a hint of cloves. Sweet with the mince pies that line the parchment paper on the counter. 

An almost severe-looking woman with pronounced crow's-feet is busy egg-washing pastries on the far counter, her silver-white hair pulled back from sharp features into an intricate braid. She's tall. Not quite as tall as Moira is, but close, and dressed in a cream-coloured sweater and dark slacks, spruce-coloured socks. 

Jack is starting to suspect that no one in this family has voluntarily dressed down in their life. She for one feels significantly underdressed for the occasion in her red hoodie and black joggers, if warm finally. 

" _Máthair_ ," is what falls from Moira's lips, and Jack wonders if the taller woman can sense the little bit of tension she feels when vividly green eyes lift from their work, first settling on the speaker and then heavily upon her. " _Is é seo_ Jacqueline."  
** Mother - This is Jacqueline 

When Moira draws her subtly nearer, it tells her the other is well aware of her vague discomfort. And in truth, she shouldn't be this nervous. She's had Christmas with bloody Widowmaker before, watched one of the world's most prolific assassins unwrap a modified sniper rifle scope she built in the machine shop. But this is Moira's mother, and that worries her more than LaCroix. Her mouth is a little dry as the older woman wipes weathered hands on a towel and steps over toward them, close enough to see the scattering of freckles on those severe features. 

" _Fuil Dé, Moira. Tá sí ina leanbh_ ," comes a response from the older woman, whose accent is somehow even thicker, rolls like green waves on the shore. "How old are you, poppet?" ** God's blood, Moira. She's a baby. 

It's impossible to know what the first bit means, but she can intuit from the faint smirk on Moira's features and the sharp laugh from Angus in correlation to the second bit, the O'Deorain brother looking right chastized when the older woman's gaze snaps to him. He coughs softly, fighting a smile as he turns back to the stove. 

Here goes nothing. 

"Thirty-three," Jack confides as she holds out her hand, slim but subtly calloused from work in the machine shop, and smiles softly. It takes her a moment, but the words she's practiced far too many times in the last week fall with relative ease, if in a strongly Australian accent, " _Nollaig Shona Duit_." 

And while Moira's mother _crosses herself_ briefly at the age given, there's a flicker of surprise at the holiday greeting, both on Caitlin O'Deorain's features and upon Moira's, though the latter soon radiates a bit of pride. 

A weathered hand finds her own, the other woman's skin feeling a little gritty from flour, and shakes it firmly before Caitlin O'Deorain, family matriarch greets in turn, "Welcome to Glendalough, Jacqueline. _Nollaig Shona Duit._ " 

For a long moment, those emerald eyes search hers as if attempting to decipher some intrinsic quality about her, as if trying to unearth the meaning from an oil painting without asking the artist. It reminds her, in some dim way, of meeting Moira for the first time. A gaze that seeks to strip away all the extraneous miscellany and delve to the core of the matter, determine what it is, exactly, that makes the Junker tick. 

_Blackpowder, bad decisions, and tall women hardly seems an appropriate answer, if on the nose._

"Jack is fine," is what she answers back when her hand is released, allowing it to fall back to her side. With a nod toward the kitchen, Jack confirms, "You've a lovely place. I don't think I've ever seen a house that looked so nice on Christmas." 

"I suppose you must celebrate a touch differently in Junkertown," Caitlinn observes, a thin, if marginally pleasant smile offered. Perhaps for Moira's sake. "Is it much varied?" 

Raking a hand through her dark hair, Jack flashes a pleasant smile and intones, "Just a little Junkertown flair, really. Every year we make a tree out of tires, string it up with some lights. Roast some prawns on the bonfire on Christmas Eve, then a couple of our mates come around to hand out gifts." 

Slipping only the pad of her thumb beneath Moira's shirt, she strokes the warm skin beneath it, drawing a bit of comfort from the action as she confides to the geneticist, "Jamie dressed as Krampus this year. I got some good snaps of him chasing the boys around the fire." 

"That sounds very colourful," Caitlin observes after a moment, though silver brows furrow slightly at the mention of Krampus. Green eyes a touch calculating, the older woman adds, "I suspect we have you to thank for our Moira coming home for the holidays. We haven't had a Christmas with her in...what has it been, _mo stór_. Eight years?" 

Casting a sidelong glance at the taller woman, Jack has to mask a little smile at the subtle tinge of colour that dusts Moira's ears at that, a correction made in a low lilt, "Nine." 

"Ah, yes. You brought that nice young man with you," Caitlin remarks further, and Jack's dark eyes snap up towards Moira at that, a brow arching curiously. "I should like to see him again some year. Are you still acquainted?" 

"Gabriel. I see him frequently, _Máthair_ ," Moira responds in a smooth, low fashion that lets her know there's some manner of story there. "I will let him know you asked after him." 

"You brought _Gabe_ to Christmas?" she inquires with a mischievious smile, resting her chin to the taller woman's bicep and looking up at her. 

"Once," Moira asserts with a pleasant chuckle at that. The faint crinkling of parchment can be heard as slender fingers toy with a bit of peppermint. Not only is there a story there, but if she's betting, it's been a _while_ since that lanky thing has been able to sneak off for a cigarette. "While we were yet in Blackwatch. He remained with us for a few days, drinking too much whiskey and charming everyone before work called him away, as I recall. It was a pleasant holiday." 

Unwrapping the end of the peppermint then, Moira places it between her teeth to take a precise bite. Not bothering to ask or even take the candy from the taller woman's hands properly, Jack simply quirks a mischievous smile and leans over to snap a small bit off the end as well, letting the red- and white-striped sweet melt in her cheek as the taller woman scrutinizes her for a moment. 

"You have appalling manners," Moira chides at that, an old argument, but nonetheless tucks a knuckle beneath her chin to tip it up slightly. A light kiss is bestowed upon her in any case, one that's gentle and tastes faintly of peppermint. 

"I know," Jack answers with a cheeky tilt to her smile, dark eyes full of laughter. 

"She's been dreadfully tight-lipped about you, I hope you know," Caitlin remarks in an even enough cadence, a curious look flicked between the two of them as the older woman moves to remove a tray of pastries in the oven. "Perhaps you can tell me how the two of you met?" 

"Really?" she drawls, a brow arched as she glances up toward Moira. 

A smirk is her only response initially, that lanky creature drifting from her side to step over near the cooling pastries and steal one up with the aid of a paper napkin. Moira confides thereafter, "I had to maintain a touch of mystery, rabbit. Else she would be disappointed." 

Rolling her eyes a little, Jack meanders over toward the counter and hop up on the edge, legs dangling as she perches there. 

"She likes to age me, is what it is," Caitlin O'Deorain retorts, a momentary shrewd look spared for the Junker on the counter before the older woman returns to folding bits of pastry. 

With a soft snort of amusement, Jack observes, "Sounds about right." She takes a warm corner of the pastry when Moira offers it, a tentative bite taken to find it tasting of apples, cinnamon, butter and sugar. _I guess now I know where Moira learned to cook_. 

"We met in Oasis. I was working with the Ministry of Mechanical Engineering, and this one and the rest of the Ministers had come down for a tour of the machine shop," Jack observes around another bite of pastry. "We ended up talking about medtech and Mary Shelley." 

_That sounds a lot better than - I made a complete ass of myself on an open commline, stammered through our first conversation, and then all but jumped your daughter in her lab a few days later at three in the morning._

Moira is still smirking, the curl to the corner of those lips a little more pronounced and mismatched gaze amused when it meets hers. She retaliates by reaching over when Caitlin turns her back and pinching the other near the hip. 

"Do you still work in Oasis?" Caitlin asks next, the tone of it all very conversational yet. 

"A lot less than I used to," she intones easily, a pointed look shot at Moira before she flicks a glance toward the pastry. "I mostly work freelance now. It pays better and I can do it remote, which is nice when I need to be in Junkertown or want to catch this one at home." 

There's a soft chuckle before the taller woman passes her one for her own. Which is good. The last thing she ate was before her transport from Junkertown, and while she loves Jamie, his half a block of dry ramen noodles out of the package was hardly the breakfast material of champions. 

"Do you know the Queen?" it's Angus with the question this time, blue eyes curious as he moves the pot of hot chocolate onto the back burner to hold a much lower heat. 

Chewing and swallowing another bite of apple pastry, Jack counters with amusement, "Everyone knows the Queen, mate." 

"Some better than others," Moira quips drily, that infuriating little smirk still upon a freckled countenance. 

_Don't be a shit_ , she mouths to the taller woman, threatening to pinch the other again before she notices that Angus is looking at her with a wide grin. "Her name's Jae. We grew up together. I helped her build her mecha." 

The O'Deorain matriarch's brow knits subtly at that, though the polite smile upon those weathered features doesn't disappear. Beckoning to Moira while flouring the other countertop, the older woman asks, "Moira, _mo stór_. Why don't you and Angus fetch more wood for the stove before the snow gets any deeper, mm? Jacqueline can keep me company in the kitchen." 

"If I must," Moira concedes lowly, the peppermint stick between the taller woman's fingertips already, held with the natural poise with which the other would a cigarette. It's highly likely, she realizes, that the other is going to use the wood-gathering expedition as an excuse to smoke, especially if she knows Moira half as well as she thinks she does. 

There's a gleam of wicked mirth in those eyes as the geneticist tacks on, "Though I might caution you on letting this one too near the stove in my absence." 

"One time," Jack counters as Moira comes to stand between her knees near the counter, dark eyes glittering as she straightens the wooden buttons on the front of the other's cardigan. "And you put out the fire without too much trouble." 

"Mm. One time too many, I should think," comes the response, peppermint on the other's breath as the taller woman ducks in for a warm, chaste kiss. "Behave yourself, rabbit." 

"I do what I want," she answers amusedly, catching the front of that sweater when the other attempts to step back and drawing her back in for a second kiss, just as light as the first. 

"So you do," Moira answers, angular features breaking into a bit of a grin before that lanky frame heads for the door, brother in tow. Pausing there to look over a lean shoulder, Moira confirms, "Remember, darling. Sugar is the sweet one, and burners are hot." 

"Get out," Jack answers with a soft laugh, shaking her head slowly as she watches them go. Hopping down from the counter, she rolls up her sleeves and asks, "What can I help with?" 


	2. i got a new tattoo last night, inked into my skin a picture of both you and i

"Mm, how are you with a rolling pin?" Caitlinn inquires with a thoughtful hum, a weathered hand finding its way between her shoulders to guide her in the direction of the sink. 

It takes her almost a full six seconds to realize that she's rolled up her sleeves and started to scrub her hands methodically, as if by rote. 

Mostly because there's a slow look along her coppery skin while she does, vaguely critical, and soon paired with the elder O'Deorain's observation of, "My. You have quite a number of tattoos, don't you?"

The soap smells pleasantly of vanilla. 

She looks down at her damp hands, the ink upon her forearms all the darker for being wet, and ponders that observation while drying her hands on a hand towel in front of the sink. Caitlin O'Deorain isn't _wrong_. It's just been a long time since she's been anyone cared about it openly. 

Along the inner forearm - the left - there are the magpies in flight that she had inked in Junkertown after her brief stint in Talon custody. A wreathed laurel around the wrist. Her right wrist carries a small crescent moon on the back, a branching tree on the inner side - one half boasting leaves, the other barren. A snarling dingo skull in dotwork at the crook of her elbow. The Roman numeral six on the knuckle of her ring finger, amongst others.

She remembers that one vividly in some aspects, in others not, can still taste the limes and salt on the backs of her teeth if she focuses on it too long. One of three tattoos she had done in El Dorado on a late-night run with Sombra and Gabe, all of them three sheets to the wind on local tequila as they celebrated her officially becoming the sixth member of Talon's strike team.

Much of that night is a blur, but she has the tattoos to remember it by. The number six. The chess piece, a black rook on the knuckle of a pointer finger, and above the elbow on the inside of her arm, a rather boldly coloured rendition of Sombra's sugar skull emblem in a graffiti style, complete with dripping paint. 

Moira had had _opinions_ about that one, but she had never had the heart to remove it.

What she does remember is the morning after, waking up in the transport feeling like death, her head in Moira's lap and feeling like the devil himself died in her mouth after trying to beat his way out of her skull. Tequila and Jack aren't friends anymore.

But all in all, Caitlin O'Deorain isn't _wrong_. She has a lot of tattoos, a lot more than what's visible from the fingertips to the elbows, in any case. A lot more covered up beneath a red hoodie and black joggers. 

She flashes a bright smile regardless, lifts her chin in a nod. It's been years and miles since she'd ever considered being self-conscious about them, and even bordering on that is making her uncomfortable, "Quite a few, yeah. I think thirty-seven was the last count."

Best to omit the manner in which they were counted. Moira's long, spidery fingers cool as they traced the outline of each bit of inked artwork, dark or vibrant, that marks her coppery complexion. Leaving goosebumps behind in their wake. Moira's mouth trailing afterwards, kissing the skin warm again in the wake of every icy touch, reverently as if the significance of each image wasn't lost on her in the slightest. 

"Let me get a good look at you, _a leanbh_ ," the words jar her from her thoughts, a hint of colour rising to her cheekbones as the weathered hands of Caitlin O'Deorain curl around her wrists and hold her at arm's length. Watery green eyes shift over her before a faintly warmer smile reaches the older woman's features. "You're very pretty. She always did have good taste, my Moira."

Perhaps it should surprise her when a coarse palm touches her cheek, but when the tip of a thumb taps her upper lip, where she knows a scar curves to touch the skin above it, it reminds her so much of Moira that she can't help but to take it in stride, if a little shyly.

"Fistfight," Jack remarks, feeling a little sheepish for doing so under the scrutiny of Moira's mother. 

"Mm. You are a Junker, aren't you?" comes the assessment after a long moment, that touch retreating as the older woman seems to contemplate the matter further. Eyes crinkling at the corners, Caitlin adds, "I hadn't put it above Moira to spin me a tale, trying to get a rise out of me. You aren't quite what I expected."

"Yeah, I get that a lot," the Junker answers with a sheepish smile, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear. "It's really not as wild as people think."

_I'm just a terrorist, really._

"It isn't all mecha battles, hooligans, and lawlessness?" Caitlin counters with a knowing look, taking her elbow to lead her over toward the counter scattered with flour. Handing her a rolling pin, the older woman drops a lump of dough onto the surface in front of her and sprinkles more flour over the top of it. "Roll that out to about this thick for me, _daor_."

"Well, alright. Maybe it is as wild as people think," Jack confides with a self-conscious chuckle, shaking her head a little as she picks up the rolling pin and sets about the task. "Like this?"

There's a delighted chuckle at that before her hands are readjusted on the rolling pin, Caitlin remarking with the assistance, "You don't cook much, do you?"

With a little grin at the question, she shakes her head once more and admits, "Not really. We ate a lot of beans and toast. You haven't really lived until Moira's caught you sitting on the kitchen counter, eating a tin of beans with a spoon for breakfast, let me tell you. She was right crook about that."

"Good," the elder woman retorts, looking something between amused and aghast, though leaning toward the former as quiet laughter shakes the other's shoulders. "I raised her right."

Weathered hands set about the work of rolling out another lump of dough, showing her how it's done. It's precise work, and hers never quite turn out the way the other's do, thin, precise sheets of yellow-white pastry dough that Caitlin cuts into neat squares. Each one finds itself with a dollop of preserves, then egg-washed around the edges, pinched and folded into a little pinwheel before it's set onto a parchment paper-lined tray and dusted with course sugar.

After the first set, she's relegated to the 'folding into pinwheels' portion, which suits her well enough. That reminds her enough of working with plastic explosives and omnic heat-patches that manipulating it isn't troublesome.

"Why don't you tell me a little more about yourself, _a leanbh_ ," Caitlin requests as they work, setting out to roll another sheet of pastry with the same dedication that she's seen Junkers apply to pressing bullet casings from recycled scrap metal. "My Moira is...very private sometimes, and I would like to get to know you a bit better, especially given the circumstances."

"The circumstances?" Jack asks with a soft curiosity, wrinkling her nose as she nearly loses the corner of a pinwheel.

"You are cohabitating, are you not?" the elder O'Deorain remarks, moving toward the stove briefly to fetch a pair of mugs. A measure of hot chocolate ladled into each one, Caitlin carries them back over to slide one beside her. "It's quite hot still."

"But yes," Caitlin continues without breaking stride, "I understand that the two of you are living together. Which is a fairly serious commitment, isn't it? I don't believe any of my other children housed with their partners until they were married."

She blinks at that, blowing atop her hot chocolate to cool it a measure. 

How to navigate that? There's not really a way to tell Caitlin that she moved in with Moira not only because they were tired of missing one another in between a thousand obligations on one side or the other, but also because Moira was right crook about Overwatch meddling about around Jack's decidedly unsecured Oasis apartment. 

"It is," is what she settles on, a half-smile offered as she elaborates, "We get on pretty well. What did you want to know?"

Taking a small, still over-warm sip of the hot chocolate, which still stings her tongue a bit, Jack finds it flavoured richly with chocolate, sweet milk, cinnamon, and a host of things she can't quite place, has no framework for. It's delicious, to be sure. Tastes damned sure like Christmas. If Moira has known how to make this this whole time, the other has been holding out on her.

It's strange, having to navigate this. It isn't like with her mother back in Junkertown. Waimarie Vargas's prying is a little more blatant, a little less comfortable. It requires less thought, because her mother wants to know things like _Can Moira shoot a rifle?_ and not _Why are you living together out of wedlock?_. That and she's fairly certain that Caitlin O'Deorain won't hook her up to a fucking car battery to try to pry out more information if the initial interrogation fails. 

And to be honest, she cannot quite imagine that this was what Caitlin O'Deorain saw for Moira. Not for a daughter who is the cutting edge scientific lead of the Ministry of Genetics, sits on the board of Ministries of Oasis itself, where discovery and innovation are so key. Not to mention that Moira is, at her last estimation, a published author, a doctor, and a professor at the university when need demands. 

Caitlin probably imagined that Moira would bring home a nice lawyer someday. A tech baroness. A neurosurgeon. Someone that is likely not half as young or half as tattooed or half as experienced in building improvised explosives as she is. But she can't dwell on that, though there's an insidious part of her mind that wants to.

She's not the ideal girl to bring home to your conventional parents for the holidays. Jack will never be as poised and cultured, refined as Moira insurmountably can be. But even as disparate parts, they are Junkertown compatible. They find a way to fit. Seamlessly at times, both in the workplace and the riotous chaos that can be their professional lives. At times they remind her of small planets caught in one another's orbit, but tilting around the sun all the same. 

Caught up in her own thoughts and folding pastry for the moment, she misses the first thing that Caitlin asks her. And the second. Up until there's the pointed clearing of a throat and a weathered hand comes to rest on her shoulder.

She jumps at that, offering a half-smile and a murmured, "Sorry."

"Perhaps you could tell me a bit about your family, _daor_?" Caitlin repeats patiently, a faint, warm smile offered her as she goes a bit red about the ears. "Do you have any siblings? What do your mother and father do?"

Her hands are warm around the ceramic mug when she abandons the bit of pastry for the moment, and in the kitchen, with the woodfire roaring in the stove and the hearth lit in the next room over, it's almost enough to remind her that she left Australia in its first warm, golden days of shimmering-hot summer for Ireland in the dead of winter. 

"I do, yeah," Jack replies after another sip of hot chocolate, blowing on it once more to cool it. "Five little brothers. Paora and Kamaka are scrappers. My middle brother, Nikau is at uni in his senior year. And Timoti and Tama are twins, they just turned nine this year."

Allowing her fingers to slip from the warm mug, she slides another pastry onto the parchment paper and takes another little square from Caitlin to start folding it, "My mom is ex-military, used to do a lot of work with the ALF. Mostly does drills with the riflemen in Junkertown. Dad's a solar engineer, he keeps a lot of the farms running."

"Kamaka and Paora," Caitlin observes in a surprisingly steady, conversational manner for learning that her mother was in the ALF. There's no point in hiding it, if it may come out later. It just isn't generally well received. "What nationality is that? Or are those traditional Australian names."

"Maori," Jack confirms with some thought, leaning back for a moment as she spots a flicker of light out the window. It's brief-lived, but only just long enough for her to make out two tall, lanky silhouettes near the dimly-lit barn in the distance. A brief ember in the dark of night.

They're definitely smoking. Sneaky little shits.

"Mom's family's all from New Zealand," she muses as she tosses a few more pinwheels onto the tray. "I'm the only one my Dad got to name. Hence the Jacqueline. Was going to be Ngaire otherwise. Ended up with it for a middle name."

"Is he originally from Junkertown? Or, I suppose, what it was before it was Junkertown?" the older woman inquires with a thoughtful curiosity. 

"Yea-. Yes. His folks were solar farmers, a few generations of Vargas's out in the Outback," Jack answers with a faint smile after the initial stumble. 

She briefly entertains whether or not she can get away with stealing another one of the cooling pastries from the rack nearby. 

"And do you intend to start your own family someday, hmm?"

_That_ question falls from the older woman's lips with good humor, so nonchalantly that she almost misses it. 

When it hits her, in the midst of setting her hot chocolate down and pulling a packet of transport peanuts out of her hoodie pocket where she'd saved them for later, she rips open the foil with a little too much force and the peanuts go scattering over the counter and the floor.

Dark eyes more than a little wide, standing absolutely still as the elder O'Deorain nonchalantly sets about picking peanuts from amidst the pastries and tossing them into the bin, Jack descends into her own little personal hell for a minute.

There's a moment of nervous laughter from her before she asks, dumbfounded, "What?"

Then, as if noticing the scattered peanuts for the very first time, she moves to help catch them up, apologizing as she sweeps some into her palm, "Sorry. Sorry, I didn't mean to make a right mess of it. A little peckish from the flight."

At that, she's summarily shooed in the direction of the farmhouse table and weathered hands settle on her shoulders to encourage her to sit, which she does, suddenly reminded that everyone in this house is impossibly tall. Wishing that she had the peanuts back now so that she'd have something to do with her goddamn hands, Jack settles for slowly tapping out a count to ten on the smooth, dark timber of the farmhouse table.

Once. Twice.

_Focus_.

"Don't trouble yourself with it, _daor_ ," Caitlin replies, accent a bit thicker for a second as it passes over the last words. "Nothing ruined. I'd nearly forgotten that Moira had us put a plate aside for you. You must be famished."

Moving forward the refrigerator, the older woman unwraps something from therein and places it in the oven to warm up, confirming, "It should only be a moment."

"And...well," the way that second word is drawn out catches her attention, makes her dark eyes snap up to Caitlin as the other woman sets about folding pastries once more as if nothing had happened. "I'm under the impression you've been seeing my youngest for...hmm. Three years now? Call it a mother's curiosity, but I was wondering what chance there was of wedding bells and little O'Deorains in the future."

_Oh fuck_.

"It's been ages since any of my grandchildren were small, it seems," Caitlin muses on, as casually as if mentioning the weather. "I've always hoped to see Moira settle down."

Question of the hour: _Where the fuck is Moira?_

"I...uh," Jack finds herself stammering a bit, stumbling over what to say as she rakes a hand through her hair. She wishes beyond all human belief that Moira would _stop fucking smoking_ and come back inside. But she clears her throat softly after a moment, offering mildly afterwards, "We have a cat?"

_Don't tell Moira's mother that having a cat together is the lesbian equivalent of already having a child. Do not. Do not tell her that, Jack_.

She decides that she should have finished Moira's glass of whiskey instead of stealing the stick of peppermint. Maybe that would have helped her navigate this.

_Don't tell her that you've wondered if you did, if they'd have Moira's eyes_.

At the warm, somewhat amused look she receives for _that_ statement, Jack adds in a hurried fashion, "Her name is Noelle. I have some pictures if you'd like to see them?"

_For the love of god, please want to see them_.

How is it that Moira charmed her mother within about thirty seconds of meeting her, and she's here floundering with Moira's.

She pulls out her comm without waiting to see if the older woman will come over, and, more smoothly than she feels, slides through a few folders to find one carefully labeled _Princesa_.

That's Sombra's doing, of course. Jack has honestly given up on trying to sort out the little folders herself at this rate, largely because Liv just scrambles them again as soon as she does, adding more pictures wherever she sees fit.

Somewhere on her comm is a file labeled _MY EYES_ that Sombra had only made the mistake of opening only once, and a second called _Lovebirds_ which is just a fancy word for _I took pictures of you guys using the surveillance cameras but they turned out real cute._

Jack settles for one of her favorite photos. One taken in the early morning in Oasis, when they had been in bed still, Moira's hair messy on a soft, white pillowcase, the coppery strands stricken with gold around the ends from the sun and the pale, amber light drawing out every freckle. Vividly lit, the rich scarlet and sapphirine blue of the other's mismatched eyes always catches her when she meets them. Gaze cast sidelong, Moira looks up toward the small, ginger ball of fluff that's draped half on the pillow and half-over one ear, nestled amidst the woman's fiery hair to peer right back down at Moira.

Jack remembers that morning. How loudly Noelle had been purring. How fucking beautiful Moira's smile was - still is, immortalized in that portrait. 

It was right after Sombra had brought in the ratty little kitten she found screaming in the bushes outside. Two trips to the pet store with Sombra and Widow later, while the geneticist remained home to stoop over the sink, washing out what seemed to this day an impossible amount of grime from that ginger fur and then combing out the little burrs in it, and they had a cat.

_Noelle_.

As Caitlin draws over behind her chair, leans over her shoulder for a better look, there's a little sound from the older woman. A slow blink, followed in rapid succession by a second, and those weathered features soften immeasurably, the corners of the eyes crinkling with a fond smile. She's reminded all of a sudden that Moira is the other's _youngest_. The baby. Albeit at fifty-one now, but that's immaterial.

"Isn't that precious," the older woman's voice is warmer now, too. Or at least she thinks so. It makes Jack wonder how long it's been, exactly, since Caitlin has seen Moira. "May I have a copy of that, if it isn't too much trouble?"

"Of course. Have your comm handy?" Jack inquires then, feeling a little bit of tension leave her shoulders as she half-turns in her seat to confide, "I've about six hundred more if you'd like. I take a lot of pictures. Have you seen any of our dog?"

There's a slow shake of Caitlin's head at that, the older woman answering, "I've not. Go on and pull them up, _daor_. I'm just fetching your plate quickly."

In the time that it takes for the other woman to fetch the tin from the oven, apportioning it out onto a plate, and carry both that, silverware, and a glass of water over to her, she's pulled up a video from another Sombra special - _The Best Boy_.

"Thanks. God, this smells amazing," Jack observes as the plate is slid in front of her. She doesn't have to do much more than catch the aroma coming from the plate for her briefly forgotten hunger to return in full force. _Fucking A_. No mystery where Moira learned how to cook now.

It's no tinned beans and toast. It's more like...well. She doesn't know what any of it is except the carrots, the rest looking something like fancy mash and some sort of stewed meat, but she doesn't care that much either, if it tastes even half as good as it smells.

While she starts to pick through the plate, having a mind for her manners as she does, Jack sets her comm on the table and queues up a short video of Moira and Barra in the backyard. 

It's near the pool. The geneticist is sitting at the edge of it, trousers rolled up to the knee and shins in the water, throwing a tennis ball for their resident dingo. Whiskey-brown eyes intent on the ball, ears pricked forward, the dingo waits patiently each time, then launches into a full running leap when it leaves Moira's hand, crashing into the water after it with wild abandon before paddling back. Scrambling up the stairs, it never takes him long to drop the sopping wet ball near the tall woman again, watching her intently as he awaits it being thrown once more.

There's a distant, yet still fond look about Caitlin at that, before the other observes fondly, "She always was fond of dogs, wasn't she? Tiernan had a brace of Dobermans when the children were younger. Cormac and Rian. Trained them to commands in the old tongue, even."

_Tiernan. Moira's father._

Leaning over to show Caitlin how to flip through the pictures on the vidscreen, Jack muses, "Moira does that with him. His name's Barra. It was Barrel before she got ahold of him, but you know. Little sacrifices." 

She spears a carrot on the end of her fork, commenting further, "I swear, he stares at me when I tell him to sit, but she could tell him to go start the car and he'd do it."

They remain there for a time, Caitlin picking through the albums on her comm with decided joy at being able to do so, and Jack polishing off the entirety of her plate before setting the fork down atop it with a 'clink'. 

"Who's this?" Caitlin asks of a sudden, a little snort of mirth escaping at the current picture. 

"Lord," Jack intones as she looks over, not certain how the older woman got into that file, but glad that it's one of pleasant pictures and not the more colourful one. "That's our friend Liv. Think that was out in California, we popped out for a few days on holiday and she conned us into doing carnival rides when we were supposed to be doing this escape room thing."

A frame from the docks in San Franciso on a _team-building_ exercise, Akande had called it. They're seated in the lift on a Ferris wheel, Jack pressing a kiss to Moira's cheek and the freckled woman smiling widely, a rare occurrence at times. It's _soft_ and Olivia is a little _goblin_ in the seat in front of them with Gabe, pointing upwards at them with the cheekiest smile she's ever seen.

"The carnival rides were more fun," she adds with conviction. Leaning her chin into one hand, Jack asks curiously, "I don't suppose you have any pictures?"

_That_ gets a glint in those green eyes, Caitlin chuckling out, "I have more pictures than you could shake a stick at. Why don't you take your hot chocolate in near the fire and I'll bring you a few albums to look through, hmm?"

\--- 

Moira finds her there when they've returned inside from gathering wood, cords of it stacked up neatly in the kitchen with frost and rime still clinging to the bark. Mint and cold air linger around that tall frame when it settles beside her on the couch, mismatched eyes casting slowly over the open album in her hands with an expression that middles between annoyance and amusement at its presence.

Her comm is full of snaps from it already, future blackmail that she honestly can't wait to show Sombra. Assuming, of course, that Liv hasn't already noticed the updates on her comm and gone through them in real time. She wouldn't put it past her. Caitlin has retreated to the kitchen to supervise the remainder of the pastry-making now that Angus is back inside, having kept her company for quite a while she flipped through a seemingly endless number of pictures of gangly, copper-haired children. 

Fully aware that Moira is watching, she lifts her comm and takes another picture - capturing a snapshot of a gradeschool Moira on Halloween, dressed rather amusingly as Dr. Frankenstein in a far-too-large labcoat. Remaining silent for almost a full minute afterwards, she sets the comm to the side with a soft 'click' before turning the page.

It's about then that a decidedly ice-cold and irrevocably freckled countenance, still no small amount pink at the cheekbones and nose from having been outside, warms itself by virtue of nuzzling into the crook of her neck.

Jack all but jolts out of her seat at that, or would, if the other's long arms hadn't already wound securely around her to hold her there. As it is, a shiver runs the full length of her spine, and she can feel gooseflesh prickling over her coppery skin as she gasps out abruptly, "Fucking hell, you're _fucking freezing_."

"Is that so?" comes an altogether amused murmur against the column of her throat, an absolutely frigid kiss placed there, only to be chased by a warm chuckle. Another kiss follows, teasingly, and all she can do is laugh as she attempts to scramble free, making little headway with the other's arms draped around her. "In the Lord's house, Jacqueline?"

"You terrible fucking shit," Jack breathes back amidst helpless laughter, "Don't you fucking-" She cuts off abruptly once more, shuddering as icy fingertips sneak beneath the hem of her hoodie to rest lightly to the warm skin beneath it. "I _hate_ you."

Squirming as best she can to try to put distance between them, and hampered more than she isn't by that lanky form wrapped around her and her own helpless laughter, Jack turns her head to look at the other woman better and threatens, "I'm going to tell your mother you were out _smoking near the barn_."

"Now. That _hardly_ sounds like something that I would do, does it, rabbit?" Moira drawls out with a low, but decided satisfaction near the shell of her ear, a chuckle following swiftly thereafter. Another, more amused sound emanates from the taller woman's chest when she shivers once more, followed by a lilting, "Besides. You are awfully warm, you know that? Don't be selfish."

There's a little nip to the curve of her ear at that, Moira observing helpfully, "It's finder's keepers."

She never should have let Moira get acquainted with Junker law.

"I swear to god," Jack answers, attempting to twist in the other's grasp and succeeding only in entangling them further. She settles for turning her head once more, confiding warmly against a chilly, freckled cheek, "I didn't leave Australia in the summer - thirty-five degrees, mind you - to get felt up on the couch by the fucking Coldmiser."

"That's the spirit," a voice sounds behind the couch as Connor walks by, headed in toward the kitchen with a chuckle of his own and not seemingly bothered by them whatsoever. Not a half-second later, the sound of footsteps can be heard in the vicinity of the kitchen and Connor voices perhaps a touch loudly, as if for Moira's benefit. "Oh, you headed out there, Mum?"

That succeeds in those ice-cold fingers retreating swiftly, at the very least, Moira even going so far as to straighten the hem of her hoodie before that lanky frame sinks back into the couch a measure, one arm draped comfortably around her shoulders. When it sneaks up to rest light fingertips to the side of her neck, she has only just enough time to turn her head toward Moira and murmur in the other's ear, "I will end your miserable fucking life," before Caitlin arrives in the doorway, green eyes shifting slowly between the two of them.

Moira's touch brushes lightly to her shoulder, applying a faint pressure thereafter through the warmth of her sweater in what must look like a comfortable, fond gesture. She likes it, even if that infuriating little hint of a smirk tells her otherwise. Briefly, Jack finds herself wondering if it's as transparent to Moira's mother as it is to her. 

Hours later, an antique grandfather clock against the wall strikes ten, the fire all but burned down to a low crackle as the animated conversation amongst the O'Deorain family has started to fade, more a pleasant lull now than a lively banter, hushed currents of warm, lilting Gaeilge in the dim amber light from the hearth. The stories and wild recalling of childhood antics they've shared over glasses of good, Irish whiskey and mugs of hot chocolate have been nothing but a delight, if she's being honest.

In between her two glasses and a whole rash of shit from Connor for being a lightweight, she's learned more than a little about Moira's family. Finn is very down to earth, and seems more than a little taken aback that she's not much older than his daughter, which has made for an interesting night so far. Angus is very much into the arts, and they'd talked about tattoos and graffiti a while before he and Moira had broken out a record player and queued up what she has to assume is just every Queen record that has ever existed. And Connor? Connor's just a right bastard. He's been giving everyone shit about everything.

She thinks she likes him the best of them. 

It's odd in some fashion, the absolute ease that's overtaken Moira here. Laughing with her brothers. Singing along with them to the records here and there as the night winds on. As if all of the stress of Rialto, of Oasis, has lifted from those lean shoulders. Melted away to trade poise and a cold, sharp demeanor for something more warm and malleable. Something that seems to harbor far more humour than it does bite, especially an unknown number of drinks into the evening, a hint of colour from dusting over those sculpted features to draw out the smattering of freckles at the bridge of Moira's nose in a way that's excessively cute.

At the moment, curled comfortable between the arm of the sofa and Moira's side, if more nestled to the latter, with a tartan blanket thrown over her for additional warmth that the other woman probably doesn't need, but she certainly does, Jack is content. It's becoming more and more tempting to simply sprawl out in the taller woman's lap and doze. It's what she'd do if they were home, she imagines. Having an arm draped around her shoulders as there is now, warm fingertips sliding into her hair to gently stroke through it. 

That's more than good enough.

Her dark eyes have nearly slid closed when she hears Connor chuckle out, "The littlest Junker's falling asleep, M. You might have to put her down for a nap."

She doesn't need to open her eyes to hear his cheeky fucking grin. 

"You already pick out a bedtime story, poppet?"

"Mm," there's a thoughtful hum from the taller woman at that, a low lilt that drawls, "I typically play ambient sound. A dingo screaming. Distant explosions. The sort."

Dark eyes slipping open a scarce measure, Jack can see the broad grin on the older O'Deorain's features, just as cocky as it is when Moira does it. Finn just looks chagrined. Poor thing.

"Hey. Fuck you," Jack murmurs with a sound of amusement, hating how tired her voice sounds as she does. Lifting her middle finger at him, she then relinquishes the gesture, using her fingertips to pinch Moira lightly on the side before adding, "And fuck you. He only screams when you shut him out of the bedroom."

It won't matter. Caitlin is in the kitchen, so she's free to give it right back at the moment. 

"That's some bold talk from a twelve year old," Connor has the same wolfish fucking smile Moira gets when she's being a brat, mischief written over his features as he asserts to his sibling. "You going to let her talk like that to me? I'd wash her mouth out with soap."

"You could fucking try, mate," Jack shoots back, stretching a little before meeting his gaze. She clicks her teeth together lightly and confides, "I bite."

"Not sure you've ever had a girlfriend I've liked before" Connor remarks to Moira at that, the corner of his lips quirking up as he scratches the scruff at the line of his jaw. He follows with the deliberately impish question, "Are you the big spoon or the little spoon."

"A scalpel," comes a low lilt from beside her, Moira chuckling softly at their antics. 

"She's the little spoon," Jack corrects smoothly, mischief threading through her voice. The arm around her shoulder pulls her playfully closer at that, a soft laugh escaping her before she nestles back in comfortably and the conversation shifts on.

It's warm.

It was a long trip from Australia.

She's swiftly losing a battle with drowsiness because of it. 

Jack doesn't realize that she's actually drifted off, a cheek nestled to the curve of Moira's shoulder, until she hears Caitlin call her name, a low, "Jacqueline, _leanbh_. Would you like me to show you your room for the evening?"

"It's hardly necessary to wake her," Moira answers back, voice all but a whisper, but pleasant, warmer than usual. "I can carry her up to bed. It would hardly be the first time."

"Stay down here and visit with your brothers," Caitlin answers, and there's a note of something in her voice that Jack can't quite place. "I'll show her up to the guest room."

The soft 'clink' of a whiskey glass being set down is followed by a familiar low lilt as Moira asks, perhaps more forthright than necessary, "I still cannot fathom the need for that. You realize, _Máthair_ , that we share a bedroom in my home. It is-"

"Not for _negotiation_ under your late grandfather's roof, is what it is, Moira Caiomhe," Caitlin corrects in a voice that brooks little argument, but is still warm for it. "Your living situation in Oasis is your own business, but in this house - you'll not be sharing a bedroom until you're proper wed. I'll not hear the neighbors gossiping at service."

"And how, precisely, do you presume the neighbors will come to know about it?" Moira asks drily, taking a sip from a nearly finished glass of whiskey. There's a low chuckle, before the taller woman asks, "Do you intend to shout it from the rooftop? Immoral daughter sleeps peacefully beside partner of three years? Unwed, absolute travesty."

"You're welcome to dislike the rules, so long as you follow them," comes Caitlin's response, firm, if yet a little amused.

There's a little scoff from the tall woman at her side at that, a slight shift to that lanky frame which she protests with a soft, displeased sound of her own as the warmth recedes slight. Then Moira murmurs near her ear, "I need you to get up, rabbit. It will be too cold to sleep downstairs once the fire is out. You would not be overfond of it."

A chaste kiss finds its way to her temple, and her dark lashes flutter for a moment before darker eyes slip open, squinting slightly at the dim light. Rubbing her eye with the heel of one hand, Jack realizes that she doesn't know, really, when she closed them in the first place, or even when Emily and Finn headed off upstairs for the evening to leave them with Angus and Connor, the latter of whom is grinning from ear to ear over his glass of whiskey at the familial bickering.

"What time is it?" Jack manages to ask in a drowsy voice, hating how tired it sounds in that moment. A yawn escapes her shortly thereafter.

A husky chuckle is the initial response, Moira's voice fond as it confides, "Time for you to sleep, _a runsearc_. _Máthair_ has _volunteered_ to see you to the guest room. _Lamentably_."

"You're being fresh," Jack chides in a soft cadence, not missing the way that the corner of the other's mouth has twitched up ever so slightly at that. _Brat_. Tempted for the moment to nestle back in where she was and ignore the whole of it, she instead rests her chin to the taller woman's shoulder and asks, "You got your comm in case Liv needs anything at the house?"

A low sound of amusement is response enough, Moira's vividly mismatched eyes meeting hers as the other confirms, "I do. Though I am certain all is fine."

The corner of her lips curls cheekily, dark eyes half-lid as she murmurs expectantly thereafter, "Where's my kiss goodnight?"

That elicits the husky laugh she expected from Moira, a sound as genuine as it is a little wild around the edges. 

"Spoiled," is the accusation that lingers between them in a low lilt, but freckled features tilt in nonetheless, brushing a warm kiss to the curve of her lips before drawing back. The hint of a smirk toys at the edge of Moira's smile, one that you could almost miss, if you didn't know better.

"Goodnight, babe," Jack intones pleasantly at that, stifling a yawn before leaning up to place a kiss to Moira's cheek. With a slow, languid stretch, the Junker confides warmly, "I'll see you in the morning, yeah?"

"I should hope so," comes Moira's response.

When their gaze meets once more, what's in them makes her fingertips feel more than a little warm.


	3. i woke up and my skin was bare, everything erased like it was never really there

Raking a hand through her dark hair and unsuccessfully fighting back a yawn, Jack follows Moira's mother down the hall and then up an impressively spiralling staircase, their walk spent in silence until they reach yet another hall there. The older woman shows her the guest room, and provides her directions to the bathroom as well as the room that Caitlin herself will be staying in in case anything is needed during the night, heaping a few extra blankets into her arms for good measure, all in rather rapid order. 

The room that she's staying in is rather rustic, a farmhouse bedroom decorated with a scarce few copper lanterns and furnished with darkly-stained timber with brass fittings. Similar in hue, the coffee-coloured walls look like rough lumber, as do the rafters, in which she can see more than a few garlands of fir and holly hung, her current surroundings as fully decorated as the remainder of the house. 

What most fully captures her attention, however, isn't the little Christmas knickknacks lining the runner on the dresser or the white candles and holly sprigs on the sill of the window, which is already kissed with a sheen of frost behind thick, spruce-coloured curtains. It's not even the subtle bite to the air, already much chillier than it was downstairs near the fire and causing an involuntary shiver to run from her ears to her toes. 

It's mostly the bunkbed.

Perhaps as a matter of causality that her lodgings for the week with a complete bloody stranger supposedly arriving later this evening involves a bunkbed _at all_. Made down in the woodshop in the barn, she imagines, likely by the former O'Deorain patriarch, it's a sturdy enough construction, arrayed with soft mattresses and softer white sheets, thick blankets of cream wool and gray knitwork strewn overtop. Moira has a hundred and one stories of visiting with her grandfather in his workshop, all fondly relayed.

But bunkbeds, really?

She's not really certain how to cope with that fact other than to throw her duffel bag at the foot of the bottom bunk.

Like fuck she's taking the top one. She's a few too many sips of good whiskey in for that.

Finder's keepers. 

Right?

Right.

Without much further ceremony, she sets about changing into the pajamas she certainly wouldn't be wearing all of if she wasn't sharing a room with a to-this-point unknown factor. It's nothing special. A loose, heather gray t-shirt that she stole from Moira, which falls just above the knees, and a pair of red- and black-checkered flannel trousers to sleep in. She leaves her socks on. Her toes are already freezing even with them. She might put on a second pair before she turns in, she muses. 

Somewhere between taking her kit across the hall to the bathroom and washing her face, Jack muses that in the last three years, she's become decidedly spoiled. Spoiled by the fact that - if she were home? She would have fallen asleep on the couch, or in bed, curled contently in the arms of a woman that's going to be several rooms down the hall. And that wouldn't be half as cold or as _empty_ as the bottom bunk.

It's funny to think about, considering half of the places that she's slept before - especially in Junkertown. Hell, Jack remembers sleeping in a ditch out in the desert once, wrapped up in a tan tarp so that wandering omnics would have a harder time spotting her if they stumbled by. Coming to with Jaeden in a pile of tires behind Wolf's bar, moonshine clinging to her teeth and tasting like _fucking death_. Shivering in her leather jacket as she tried to fall asleep on the sheet metal roof of an abandoned military building near the Omnium, where at least there was a vantage point to see if anyone was coming and she wasn't on the ground.

Junkers make do.

At least until they start seeing tall Irish women, apparently, and then all bets are off. Oasis is infinitely better in that regard. It would be the most blatant sort of lie to say that it wasn't. There's a part of her, she feels, that should be a little embarassed at how annoyed she is by the seperate rooms situation.

But Jack also never let anything like _logistics_ stop her before. There are ways around the problem.

In the midst of brushing her teeth in front of an immaculately porcelain sink and silvered mirror, she pauses with the toothbrush tucked in her cheek to tap out a quick message on the comm.

_ja.vargas: hey_  
_ja.vargas: what time does your mom go to bed_  
_ja.vargas: unless youre chicken_

She's finished with her teeth an repacked her things in their kit by the time an answer has come back, the soft sound of a chime echoing through the bathroom.

_m.odeorain: Hardly. I will keep you appraised._

Good.

It wouldn't be half as much fun if her counterpart actually intended to adhere to the rules of the house, not that Jack had actually consider that might be a possibility for very long. Moira has never been much for following any guidelines that the other deemed foolish or flawed, regardless of the setting. Though, she supposes, she has seen some occasions - mostly with Talon - where the geneticist makes small concessions to smooth matters over here and there. Most often, she sees the slow, almost glacial chill of the long game or the swift, brutal deconstruction of another's argument instead, turned on its head in an instant and without remorse.

That wouldn't fit here.

Jack has to admit, making her way back across the hall to toss her travel kit into her luggage, that the whole situation has her feeling more than a little like a teenager again, though her own mother never really cared much about her comings and goings as long as she wasn't wasting ammo or catching any bullets. 

It had been at one point been a habit for Jaeden to show up at her window or for her to show up at the other's, clambering through to spend the night curled on a too-small twin mattress on the floor of her room in a tin trailer. Those had been good days. In retrospect, she has little doubt that her mother was _well aware_ that Jae was around. Just like she doesn't doubt that if it _wasn't_ Jaeden, a bullet would have found the other Junker sooner than later, careening over the scrubland to keep yet another threat from intruding on the Vargas homestead.

The trick to tonight will be making it down the hallway without waking anyone up, not hitting any creaky floorboards, she imagines. It's far too cold outside and far too far up to the second floor to entertain trying the window, as charming as the idea may be. In any case, Moira's bed will no doubt be warmer than the guest room she's returned to, and there's a part of her that knows it'll at least be nice to fall asleep next to the other woman again. It's been about a month since they slept in the same bed.

And that isn't as typical as it used to be.

Settled on the bottom bunk as she awaits the chiming of the comm, Jack sits cross-legged, reaches out for her kit to find the small tin inside it and toss back the odd assortment of radiation tablets and vitamins prescribed for the day. Chasing it with a little water and trying to ignore the way the taste of metal clings to her palate, she looks out the window, watches the snow drift gently outside as it continues to come down. The wind has picked up, whispering through the fir trees in a haunting fashion and rattling softly at the windowpanes, the snow and ice it kicks up glittering in what light ekes through the frost-limned glass.

There are a few new snapshots on her comm when she checks her messages, candid pictures that mostly involve Sombra in various locations in their house. Barra on the couch, sprawled in Gabe's lap while Talon's Reaper watches a holiday special. Widow sitting silent and still in an armchair in the study, a glass of wine in one hand and a leather-bound book in the other. Sombra in her closet, holding up one of the hidden parcels that read _Olivia_ upon them, secreted around the house for just that reason. Cheeky little shit. 

She misses them already, wonders where the holiday has found Akande. Last she knew, he had planned a retreat to Numbani. 

Not long after, Jack starts to seriously consider turning in as her eyes start to slip closed again, only just setting aside her comm before there are footsteps in the hall and the door swings open abruptly. 

The slim form ushered into the guest room with her offers a chipper greeting of, "Cheers luv, the cavalry's h-" before stuttering out suddenly, the distinctly British intonation of the words, " _Oh no_ ," heard thereafter. 

If Caitlin noticed the swift shift up from the bottom bunk, the way her slender shoulders have squared, feet lined up on the floor in preparation of a knock-down, drag-out scrap, it appears to be attributed to her being a Junker. A low lilt offered of, "Ah, Jacqueline. We didn't mean to startle you, _daor_."

Dark eyes remain rapt on the slim woman a half-step inside the door, don't leave even as Caitlin places a hand on the other's lower back to usher them in, which if the waifish expression on the Brit's countenance is any indication, is the _last place_ that Tracer would like to be right now. 

Jack tilts her head slowly to one side, forces a scant measure of the tension from her slim frame, uncurling whitened knuckles at least marginally before answering in what she hopes is a smooth voice, "It's no trouble. I was just about to turn in."

But her mind is racing, dark eyes roving over the Overwatch agent to determine just how many, if any weapons may be on the other's person. So much for a restful night's sleep, she muses, what with the sudden rush of adrenaline and the strongly metallic taste in her mouth, somehow worse for it.

"This is Emily's girlfriend, Lena," Caitlin confides with a pleasant enough expression, voice a little warm as she admits, "I hadn't been expecting a real hero for the holidays, but here we are."

Jack lifts her chin slightly in acknowledgement, night-dark eyes never leaving warmer brown as Tracer watches just as readily back. 

"Lena, _daor_ ," the older O'Deorain introduces politely, "This is Jacqueline Vargas, Moira's partner. She and Moira are out visiting from Oasis for the holiday."

It isn't lost on her. The way that Lena mouths _Oh no_ again when it all clicks together. How those waifish features pale several shades. Caitlin can't see it from where the older woman is standing, but it's there. And she knows that the concern now isn't as much her, as it is Talon's medic, not a few rooms down the hall from Overwatch's golden child - the veritable poster girl of the organization as a whole.

It could be worse, she muses. At least it's not bloody _Angela_.

At least there's a knife under the pillow. Old habits die hard. She's glad that she tucked it out of sight already. That would make a great impression on Moira's mother, wouldn't it? Probably less of one than stabbing an Overwatch agent in the guest room. There's another one tucked in her boots, but those are downstairs in the coat closet. 

"Do you girls know each other?" Caitlin asks as the silence extends onward for an uncomfortable minute. 

Deciding in that moment that it's best to keep this _uneventful_ and not cause a scene in front of Moira's eighty-something year-old mother, Jack relaxes her posture some and takes several steps forward. 

Not missing how carefully the waifish woman's warmly brown eyes watch her on the way over, she extends a subtly calloused and decidedly tattooed hand with the smooth welcome, "Jack Vargas. Nice to meet you. Emily's girlfriend, is it?"

Lena catches on with a nervous little laugh, a slim hand taking hers to shake it firmly enough, "Right, luv. Lena Oxton. Jack. Here with...Moira, innit?"

"Yeah," Jack confides, clarifying as if there could be any room for interpretation on that, "Moira O'Deorain."

She sees the other woman swallow a little at that, smile a little more nervously.

They've seen each other a few times since the incident years back in her apartment. A few at conferences and events for the medical community, where she served as Moira's plus one and Lena tagged along with Winston or Angela, sometimes Mei. Those instances were polite enough, usually involved Lena trying to mediate the antagonistic way that she and Angela converse with one another. 

In the field is a different story, one that makes Jack want to stomp her like a cricket. Mostly because the dodgy little shit spends most of her time on the back-line trying to harass their medic. Every. Goddamn. Time. Last time she had word Tracer was in the field, she had sent Barra bolting out into toward the medic while she finished hasty repairs on their downed transport. Moira hadn't told her much about whatever had occurred there, but the ride home had involved modest praise for their resident dingo and his enthusiastic shredding of a white and orange track shoe.

It makes her a little sad that they didn't bring Barra with them on holiday.

And here they are now.

Overwatch's Tracer.  
Talon's Rook.

Caitlin looks between them once more and offers a warm smile before confiding, "Alright then. I'm off to bed. You girls have a good night, and let me know if you need anything."

"Thanks, Cait," her voice is pleasant enough at the statement, but she knows the smile isn't reaching her eyes. She and Lena watch one another like stray dogs circling in an alley until the O'Deorain matriarch has shut the door, at which the Overwatch agent emits a soft, strained sound from near the doorway.

Jack remains where she is, unmoving, and simply waits until the measured footsteps in the hallway have disappeared toward the end of it to assert in a quiet fashion, "If you fuck up this holiday, I swear to God, mate."

"Look, luv. I'd _no idea_ ," Lena answers back placatingly, hands uplifted to show empty palms, though that warm gaze darts momentarily toward the suitcase near the door. "Course it couldn't be simple, right? Come meet the fam. Spend a few in a cozy little farmhouse on the Isle with my best girl. Thought it'd be right wicked."

Tracer's voice picks up to a breakneck speed, "None of this _welcome to your separate rooms, Merry Christmas, here's your terrorist_ bit," before the other woman simply lets her head fall back and looks at the ceiling.

"You'd best not have a pistol in there, mate," Jack counters slowly, tension returning to her slim frame in an instant as she watches the waifish woman near her look at the suitcase once more. Lifting her chin in a slight nod she asserts, "You jump me on Christmas Eve, I'm about to be right pissed."

"Look," Lena responds hurriedly, a soft sound made in the back of her throat before she extends a hand cautiously once more. "Look, look, look. How 'bout a Christmas truce, luv? That's fair enough, innit?"

It takes her a few seconds to wrap her head around that, but she reaches out to take the other's hand and shake it firmly before heading back over toward the bottom bunk to kick back there once more. 

The comm chimes softly and they both jump a bit at that.

_m.odeorain: Fifteen minutes should suffice. The first hallway to your left. It will be the fourth room down, again on the left. Just past the frame with the Dobermans._

Somewhat surprisingly, Lena pads over after her, flopping down onto the mattress to stare up at the bunk above them and raking a hand through short, mussed hair before hedging, "I can sleep downstairs on th'couch? Don' think either of us'll be up to much sleep proper in the same room, eh luv?"

"Worried I'm going to take your accelerator apart while you're sleeping?" Jack asks idly, thinking for a moment before leaning over nearer Lena. Flipping her comm around, she takes a quick selfie of the two of them for posterity and sends it along.

_ja.vargas has attached an image file_  
_ja.vargas: check out my roommate_

There's a nervous little laugh at that, Lena confiding, "Not 'til just now." Then, freezing up a second to peer around the room, "You didn't bring your dog, didya?"

Jack shakes her head as she sits upright once more, asserting conversationally, "Sombra has him while we're on holiday. Didn't think kicking off a family visit with _here's our dingo_ was probably for the best, yeah?"

"I can't believe Em's auntie is _that bloody Moira_ ," Lena laments with a groan, though turns her head to look at Jack. "Some bloody holiday, innit?"

_m.odeorain: Kindly tell Olivia that she is not amusing._  
_ja.vargas: im dead serious right now_

Glancing up with a little grin, Jack confides, "Right? Moira thinks Sombra and I are pranking her. Should be a fun breakfast." Then, with a nod toward the door, "You can have the room if you don't narc me out. My ass was planning on sneaking down the hall in ten anyway."

Lena throws an arm over her eyes at that, murmuring something unintelligible.

It's weird. Glossing all of the rest of it. Opting, for the time being, to just be two people instead of two sides of a coin diametrically opposed to one another. But in the same note, there's nothing to be gained from knocking the piss out of one another in the O'Deorain family home. And while she isn't, per say, thrilled about sharing her holiday with someone she's exchanged blows with in her apartment or who has shot stun rounds at her in King's Row, it being Tracer isn't honestly the worst thing that could happen.

Tossing her comm over toward Lena, Jack asks, "Pop your info in for me? Just in case I need to get back in right quick."

There's a sidelong look at her at that, before the other woman takes up the comm and taps out the information, albeit some reluctantly. Lena wrinkles her nose, commenting as she does, "I'm gonna have t'call Morrison. What'm I even gonna say? Sorry, Cap. Spendin' the holiday with Talon's doc and mechanic. Big fam thing."

Pausing amidst the typing, Lena breathes out in a sudden sigh before confiding, "Oh my god, bloody Ang is gonna have _kittens_."

At a pointed look from Jack, there's another nervous laugh before the waifish woman beside her says, "Sorry, luv. I'll...right. Bit nervous, yeah?"

Wrinkling her nose slightly, Jack confides, "Yeah. You're right, though. Let me text Akande right quick."

She shoots off the information without any trouble, then pops into the personal chat Liv set up for the strike team. It's useful, but the names change on a whim and that makes it a little interesting. Liv's whim, specifically.

_cRook has uploaded an image file._  
_cRook: hey guys_  
_cRook: look who came to xmas_  
_cRook: were bunkmates_  
_hack.the.planet: adkfjalskfjadlkfjal_  
_hack.the.planet: ¿Qué?_  
_xXEdgelordXx: ...._  
_xXEdgelordXx: ...Liv_  
_hack.the.planet: uno momento_  
_xXEdgelordXx has been changed to xXEbenezerXx._  
_xXEbenezerXx: ...that isn't better_  
_xXEbenezerXx has added m.odeorain to the chat._  
_m.odeorain has been changed to DoctorClaw._  
_DoctorClaw: Honestly, Olivia?_  
_hack.the.planet: stop leaving the chat_

A laugh escapes her at that, dark eyes aglitter as she shakes her head slowly. It's almost a pity Liv couldn't come out with them. Liv would have had every last person in this house charmed inside of ten minutes, she imagines. 

_DoctorClaw: Engage in conversation that is worth my time._  
_hack.the.planet: ouch_  
_hack.the.planet: someone's getting coal in their stocking_  
_hack.the.planet: surprised you have time to text while you steal Christmas_  
_DoctorClaw has been changed to GrinchBinch._  
_GrinchBinch: Olivia_.

To her side, Tracer rubs a cheek with one slim hand and admits, "How you think she's gonna...you know? Em's been excited to see her aunt ages now. And now she's _that Moira_."

"You really think she's going to suck the life out of you in front of her niece?" Jack teases lowly at that, an impish note to her voice as she glances up. "I wouldn't. Don't think she's keen on the Dream Team showing up at her mom's house, you know?"

There's a slow exhalation from the slender woman on the other end of the bunk, then a nod, before Lena confides, "I'd kill for some gin."

"I've got some mezcal in my bag," she replies, levering up from the bunk to open it. It takes a minute to find the small bottle that Sombra secreted away in her things for the holidays, cheekily labeled _In Case of Emergency: POUR GLASS_. Tossing it over near Lena, Jack tilts her head to one side and asks, "Pass me the knife under that pillow?"

There's a slow blink at that, then another little laugh as if she might be joking. When her hand remains outstretched, the Overwatch agent feels around under the pillow until she comes up with it, still secure in a leather sheath, and places it in Jack's hand with marginal discomfort. 

"Right. I'm off into the night," Jack intones thoughtfully, tucking the knife into her bag before shouldering it. "Message you if there's trouble?"

"Right," Lena repeats, swallowing once more before she pipes up. "Hey. Rook?"

She pauses in the doorway, looking back over her shoulder.

"Merry Christmas, luv."

The smile that touches her features at that is faint, but genuine, and before she steps out the door, Jack lifts her chin in a slight nod.

There's only dim illumination in the hallway, a construction lined in framed artwork of farm scenes and old photographs of family members, almost every last one crowned in a fiery mop of red hair. She doesn't linger overlong, keeping as near to the wall as possible to avoid creaking floorboards as she picks her way down the hall. How hard could it be?

If she can crawl through the vents in Volskya Industries, she can make her way down one hallway in the dead of night in the Irish winter, right? 

Right.

She almost passes by one of the doors on the way, but pauses, backtracks just a little bit. It's not part of the plan, but she lifts a hand to rap lightly on it with her knuckles anyways. Once. Twice, until she hears someone shuffle towards it. 

Not bothering to explain much further when it creaks open and Emily peers out, all warm brown eyes and a mess of long, copper-red hair, Jack simply jerks a thumb over her shoulder and whispers, "Your girl's in the guest room, mate. Just got in."

Then, lifting a tattooed finger to her lips, she takes two swift steps backwards down the hall and confides quietly, "You saw nothing."

_Merry Christmas, Lena._

\---- 

A hint of warmly golden light illumines the hallway in a slender stripe of amber, ekeing out from the only just ajar door waiting for her down the hall. A familiar silhouette lingers inside, one lean shoulder set to the wall, and it doesn't take long for Moira to ease the door carefully open to avoid it creaking and allow her inside.

It shuts with a soft 'click' behind her, the latch turned to lock it securely.

Only seconds after her military bag is dropped to the floor, there's a long arm sliding around her waist to draw her near, and a copper-crowned countenance ducks to brush lips to the shell of her ear. Moira's warmer hand comes to rest alongside her neck, curving there, the fingertips all but threaded into her hair.

"Hello, rabbit," that low lilt of a voice all but whispers there, a warm breath felt into her hair. Burnt amber and bergamot linger between them, the familiar fragrance of the other's cologne, carrying a hint of whiskey with the words spoken. 

Her dark eyes flick toward the curve of the other's lips, then back to mismatched eyes, not losing the look in them. Vivid in the warm amber light, their scarlet almost wine-dark and blue perilous as the ocean in a way that she _likes_ , shrouded for an instant by coppery lashes. It's the smile that gets her. It always is. The hint of a smirk at the corner, only just curling there, telling with all too much certainty that Moira noticed.

"Hey gorgeous," comes her response, voice kept smooth and dark as she slides her hands beneath Moira's shirt. Around the narrow, slim hips and up the warm contours of a back to map out the lean musculature there. Her nails trace the other's spine on the way back down, the sound that Moira makes at that vibrating beneath her fingertips.

There's a comfortable heat everywhere that they touch, one that wards off a measure of the farmhouse's seemingly innate chill. It's calling into question that she came down here to _sleep_ at all. The little white lies we tell ourselves.

She wouldn't call it a searing kiss, not at first. But a smoldering one, when it comes. One that leaves a feeling like breathing smoke on her lips, builds up slowly with every feather-light brush of the other's to hers. Warmer the second time. Insistent the third. She feels it like catching embers beneath her tongue, hot as a penny left in the sun, when long fingers slip beneath the front of her night-shirt and splay over her abdomen. 

When her breath hitches, Moira chases it, presses in until her shoulders hit the door, a low sound made as her hands curl and the blunted edge of her nails bites into the small of the other's back. It isn't smoldering anymore. It's hot, molten metal in the way they ebb and flow, give and take amidst breathy sounds, more than one soft gasp when that lean frame presses in closer, holds her there harder. Moira takes. But taking is often a form of giving sometimes, isn't it?

It takes less than a minute for those slender, physician's hands to catch under her shirt, sliding slowly up the curve of her ribs, and, when they break apart just long enough, pull it over her head to toss it onto the floor. A mismatched gaze shifts slowly from the tattoo at the apex of her hip, upwards, occasionally pausing to allow a tracing of warm fingertips around this design or that, lingering for a moment on the ribs to draw slowly around the edge of a new bit of ink. New at least, since the last the other counted.

A coffin, its stark black surface laden with poppies. The sharp red and black linework is bisected at the centre, revealing a hint of the vividly red bones within.

"Thirty-nine," that low lilt observes, stirring against her coppery skin. 

The bridge of her nose brushes a freckled one. She murmurs back, "You didn't forget."

What follows is a slow sliding of warm fingertips upwards, her skin tingling in their wake, until a hand cups the swell of her breast, a thumb stroking there in a languidly slow motion. Sculpted features tilt subtly then, brush a kiss to the scar at her upper lip, a feather-soft gesture followed by the smoke and whiskey of the other's timbre there, " _Ní dhéanfaidh mé dearmad ar bith faoi tú riamh_."  
** I never forget anything about you

Her dark eyes flutter closed for a moment at another slow stroking of the other's thumb against her skin, perhaps the timbre of that voice, rolling and pleasant in its homeland's native tongue. She thinks that Moira could tell her anything in that voice and it would be equally compelling. 

It's a natural progression of things that has her hand come slide behind the taller woman's neck, a forearm brace behind the shoulder so she can use the leverage to shift _up_ , and Moira, to her credit, curves an arm beneath her to hold her there she comes to rest with her legs wrapped around slim hips. 

One arm drapes around lean, freckled shoulders, tracing over to feel the definition in them, the subtle tension caused by their new arrangement against the door. But the other slides slim, subtly calloused fingertips into a wild mess of coppery hair, smoothing it gently before twining into it. 

The height advantage, however minute, isn't common, and she can't help but to bite her lip slightly, not quite masking the smile she'd intended to. 

"I missed you," Jack confides then, a tilt of her head sending her dark hair spilling in a curtain around them. 

When Moira's lips brush to hers again, she finds them warm and soft, tasting of whiskey and peppermint. Insistent, when she sinks back subtly and it takes little incentive for the other to follow, a lean frame holding her more firmly against the door at that. She allows Moira in, traces a line of sharp teeth with her tongue and hears, feels the sound made into her mouth at that, somewhere between a low groan and a hitching of breath. 

She could hear that a thousand times and never get tired of it.

Softly approaching from down the hallway, it isn't so much the _sound_ of footsteps as they draw near that catches their attention. 

No, Jack is a little busy for that, her shoulders flush with the door and hands caught in the soft cotton of a shirt that she has _almost_ over the taller woman's head. The matter is hindered, insomuch that they would have to _stop_ what they're doing for her to pull it over fully. And the molten feel of the taller woman's mouth on hers isn't something that she's willing to relinquish. Not just yet. 

It's the sharp rapping of knuckles on the other side of the door, the vibration of which she feels against her shoulders, that has them stock still in an instant, her lower lip still gently between Moira's teeth.

"Moira, _mo stór_?" the distinct sound of Caitlin O'Deorain's voice sounds from the hallway. 

Her blood turns to ice at that voice, dark eyes wide as she looks down for a doorknob that is, in fact, still securely locked. It's a miracle that Moira hasn't fumbled and dropped her, like a vintage model gameboy one's been caught with after-hours on a school night. 

As it is, the other's breath is warm where it gusts against her cheek, those mismatched eyes fixed on the door behind her. She can feel the harsh rise and fall of the other's chest where it's pressed against hers, everywhere they're touching going from warm to unbearably hot in an instant. 

It takes Moira a moment, the soft clearing of a throat, the inhalation and exhalation of a few slow breaths taken before speaking. That low lilt is surprisingly even for it, "Yes?"

_This is what existential dread must feel like._

"Ah. You _are_ up," Caitlin's voice sounds from the other side of the door. "It's a bit late to have your light on, don't you think? I can bring you up something if you're having trouble sleeping. We do have Christmas service in the morning."

_God's blood_ , is what she watches Moira mouth in the low light, and it's all she can do not to make this worse, nip the line of a jaw or the curve of a lower lip for the sake of it. When those scarlet and blue eyes flick to hers, their colour heady behind coppery lashes, the taller woman mouths next, _Don't you bloody dare_ , as if knowing all along what darted through her mind on a whim.

"I was speaking with Gabriel on the comm, and am headed to bed presently," Moira voices then, sounding all at once subtly vexed and immeasurably patient. "You recall that I will not be attending service, _Máthair_. We spoke about this."

"I see. I had hoped you may change your mind," comes the response from the elder O'Deorain, a little stern, but with an audible note of disappointment. "Will you tell Gabriel to have a Merry Christmas for me, _daor_? It would be a delight to see him visit once again. You seemed very close."

There's a slow inhalation from Moira at that, and Jack could almost swear the taller woman was counting to ten in silence, before a low lilt answers, "I will let him know, thank you. Goodnight."

"Goodnight," sounds from the other side of the door.

With what seems an excruciating slowness, Jack listens to the sound of the older woman's footsteps heading down the hall toward the bathroom, followed by the sharp creaking of a door that desperately needs to be oiled. It takes longer still for footsteps to make their way back up the hall, past the door, and off into the direction of the older woman's bedroom.

At the distant sound of a door shutting, Moira looks at her, and with more than a little exasperation, directs toward the comm unit on the dresser, "Aro. Kindly turn out the light."

It flicks off immediately to leave them in the dim, silvery light filtering through the window from beyond the fir trees outside.

"Where were we?" follows soon after, a huskier note to that timbre that sends a shiver down her spine, one that has little to do with the chill of an Irish winter and everything to do with the way it's murmured warmly near her ear.


	4. my lover's a serial killer, but she don't need no trigger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ** ok this is mostly smut  
> ** late Christmas smut  
> ** it's the gift that keeps on giving  
> ** I regret everything

"Where were we?" follows soon after, a huskier note to that timbre that sends a shiver down her spine, one that has little to do with the chill of an Irish winter and everything to do with the way it's murmured warmly near her ear.

Her fingertips still caught in the soft cotton of the other's shirt, Jack slips it slowly up lean, freckled shoulders, then over a coppery-crowned head to muss the taller woman's hair in a way that she undoubtedly likes. Dark eyes meeting mismatched thereafter, the Junker brushes her lips softly to the taller woman's, whispers there afterwards, "Why don't you remind me?"

The arm curved beneath her adjusts a measure, hoists her up higher on those slim hips, even as she drapes her arms back around Moira's shoulders once more. It never fails to surprise her how easily the other woman does that, so much of that lean and lanky build often hidden beneath a labcoat and formal attire that it's easy to forget the strength it carries. 

Enough to carry her over to the bed, to be certain. Enough to keep her there through another slower and infinitely more teasing kiss, the reciprocation of a sharp nip to her lower lip before she's tossed onto the blankets with little ceremony as if it were a fair turn for her mischievous behavior.

She shivers for a moment at that. Everywhere they've been touching is warm, but the chill in the farmhouse, a pervasive draft from its age, is otherwise bracing and she hasn't even begun to acclimate from her travels from an Australian summer to an Irish winter. When she moves toward the edge of the bed, keen to get under the covers proper, she makes it no further than setting her feet on the floor. Light fingertips find their way to her bare sternum then, tracing the outline of the crescent moon and the haloed rays of sunlight inked there before a little shove is leveraged to push her back down, half-atop the mattress and half-off of it, her feet still touching the floorboards.

"I require these," Moira confirms in a husky timbre, fingertips catching in the checkered flannel of her pajama trousers by way of explanation. She lifts her hips enough to allow them to be drawn down. Doesn't really care where they end up. 

She's already distracted by the way a warm, wholly indecent kiss has found its way to the bare skin there, one that lingers just above the waistband of the dark red boy briefs she has on underneath before they're drawn off too, tossed somewhere in the vicinity of the remainder of what she'd been wearing when she came in. 

"Get under the blankets before you catch cold," a directive follows, chased by a last warm kiss at the plane of her hip before that lanky figure rises to its full height once more, raking a hand through fiery hair. A fond look flicks over her, toys at the corner of Moira's lips before the other moves with purpose toward the suitcase on the nearby dresser.

It really doesn't take much incentive for her to do just that. The sheets are soft and ivory, still carry the subtle fragrance that she has come to associate so distinctly with Moira O'Deorain. Bergamot and burnt amber, the rich notes found in the other's cologne. Under the comfortable weight of the blankets, it's easier to keep warm, to be certain, and she props her head on a pillow to watch the taller woman look for something in one of the suitcase compartments.

Amusement curls the corner of Jack's lips into a mischievous smile, glitters in the darkness of her eyes as she asks, "Are you coming to bed?"

"Be patient," Moira responds, though a hint of a smirk casts over those freckled features when mismatched eyes glance sidelong at her. Presumably finding what was being searched for, the taller woman tosses a box beside her on the bed, simply wrapped in festive parchment with a small card affixed to one corner. It reads, in impeccable handwriting: _Jacqueline_.

This done, Moira sets about collecting their scattered clothes to fold them neatly atop the dresser. Dark eyes lift from the parcel, tracking the way a lean, freckled back looks in the dim illumination when Moira turns to check the lock on the door a second time, then simply sets about stripping down to the boxer briefs.

"Are we opening our presents early, then?" Jack teases at that, not hesitating to slide a finger under the seam of the paper and start to tear it off.

"I thought," comes the low lilt of a response, heady scarlet and blue eyes falling heavily on her as the taller woman undresses and then circles around the bed. "That you might open one of yours."

It isn't long before a chill washes over her bare skin, the blankets turned back just long enough for a lanky frame to settle in behind her with a dip of the mattress. At least the cold is short-lived, however, soon replaced by the pleasant warmth of the other woman nestling comfortably to her back, leaned up on an elbow to watch her finish unwrapping the gift with mild interest.

Warm fingertips trail distractingly down her side, then somewhat more distractingly slide their way between her thighs to draw them apart slightly, an impossibly husky voice murmuring just behind her ear, "And perhaps then, I might open one of mine."

Teeth scrape the sensitive skin there thereafter, and Jack exhales in a shuddering breath at that, feeling her pulse jump more than a little and a decided heat rising to her skin at that touch, both over her cheekbones and where those fingertips currently rest, trailing an idle pattern on her inner thigh. 

" _God_ , you're fucking cocky," she manages in a breathier voice than she'd care to admit. Glancing back over her shoulder, dark eyes intent behind a veil of darker lashes, she accuses without malice, "You always pull this shit somewhere we have to be quiet."

"Confident," sounds along with a husky chuckle near her ear, an altogether-too-pleased smile curling over Moira's countenance to reveal a brief slip of teeth with it. It wouldn't be as difficult to cope with if a thumb weren't currently stroking along her skin, Moira's voice dark and low as the other confides, "Though an ironic choice of words, all things considered. Open your present."

She arches a brow at that, jumps a little when there's a nip to the shell of her ear by way of response, the taller woman clearly intent on being fresh. 

Discarding the top of the box by simply tossing it onto the floor, off the side of the bed, Jack sifts through a bit of white tissue paper for whatever is inside. She knows what it is the second her fingers close around it, but draws it slowly from the box to look at it anyway. 

It's a strap-on, if a rather elegant and high tech one. Of modest size, a smooth, not quite wholly opaque black that reveals a hint of circuitry beneath the material in the light. A newer model, if she were betting, and it's more so the situation that she's currently in than that fact that keeps her from attempting to analyze how it works more thoroughly. This is not the time for her mechanic's brain to pick up and kick into overdrive, no matter how much it _very badly wants to_.

Warm lips brush to her coppery skin, mapping their way from the curve of a bicep to the back of the shoulder as they trace slowly over every far-flung star in the Hydra constellation that's tattooed there in succession. It feels criminally good, and her dark eyes fall closed for a brief moment as the last one lingers, eliciting a soft sound from her as it does. 

The teasing sensation persists, Moira's breath more than a little hot where it exhales against her skin, lips soft as the trail up along the side of her neck, a gentle nip felt when the taller woman reaches the line of her jaw. Just before the other confides lowly, "It was expensive. I would thank you not to take it apart."

Her eyes slip back open, middling in hue between coffee and chocolate in the dim light, and she confides back in a smooth, dark voice that harbors a thread of mirth, "Maybe not tonight, anyway."

It's an empty threat.

Another quiet sound escapes her when she's kissed beneath the jaw, the warm brush of lips to her chilly skin soon shifting to a hot, more thrilling sensation as the other's mouth opens there. There's another nip after a second, after which Moira sucks lightly at the tender place that she just left behind, those long fingers surprisingly gentle as the trail slowly up her arm.

"Grand," is all that the other responds, albeit in a pleased timbre along the column of her throat when she cranes her head to allow better access to it. There's a low, thoughtful hum from the woman behind her at that, the taller woman starting to capitalize on it with decided fervor. 

Jack slips a hand back between them on a whim, slides it down and over the soft fabric of boxer briefs, and both hears and feels another hum from Moira at that. Her memory has always been rather tactile, useful for a mechanic. For someone who needs to be able to differentiate between wires, metals, circuits at a touch. It has broader applications occasionally. Now, feeling the subtle variation in the fabric from its usual, the peculiar bracing over the plane of a lean hip behind her, she knows well enough.

The touch at her shoulder trails back down with a measured slowness, around the forearm, the curve of her wrist, where those long physician's fingers, so suited to fine movements and the sundering of a path between life and death simply curl to hold her. Glancing over a bare shoulder at that, Jack's dark eyes search gorgeously angular, freckled features before she confirms mores than _asks_ , "You have the harness on already, don't you?"

"Mm," Moira's intonation is not so much a word as it is a sound in the shell of her ear, the remainder drawled in such a way that she has no doubt as to its veracity. It's absolutely true, the way it's said, more than a little self-assured as the other confides, "What an interesting hypothesis."

"You bought a strap for Christmas," Jack observes with a soft current of laughter. Australian accent coming out in full force, she reiterates, "A Christmas strap."

"I did. It's a sensory model," Moira's lips are brushing the curve of her ear with every word, and that fact is only amplified by the husky quality of the other woman's voice. Worsened somewhat when her wrist is released and those fingertips trace over her hip. That voice is warm in her hair as Moira confides, "Perhaps we could make it a new tradition, rabbit."

Another soft, albeit earnest laugh escapes her at that, a pleasant sound that finds itself echoed in a low chuckle into her hair. Shifting out of the other's embrace, if only for the moment, Jack moves to settle seated amidst the pillows at the headboard, combing her hair over one shoulder as the blankets fall to her waist. 

She crooks a finger at the taller woman then, inquiring with a quiet amusement as she does, "Does that new tradition include fucking extra quiet in your old bedroom?"

Gooseflesh is already creeping over her bare skin, only recently warmed from being nestled within the blankets, when the quilts and sheets are drawn back to accommodate the tall frame that settles between her knees, all but looming over her. Jack finds that she doesn't mind the chill as much as she thought she might, or perhaps it's simply easier to ignore how they are. She brushes a touch up the outside of one of Moira's thighs, trailing up toward the hip as she traces from freckle to freckle along the way. 

"Are you in need of the instructions?" Moira drawls out in a low lilt after a moment, a fingertip tucking beneath her chin to tilt her head up slightly. Even after her gaze snaps up to meet the glint of those scarlet and blue eyes, heady as ever behind coppery lashes, it takes her about three full seconds to place that she's being teased. The smirk would be the dead giveaway, curled devilishly at the corner as a perfect brow arches at her. "Or have you simply become distracted again."

That's fine. 

She can tease right back. Retrieving the strap from the box, if some distracted by the fingertips tracing the line of her jaw as she does, she inspects the base to map out the circuitry carefully, then the base it affixes to on the boxer briefs, and matches the fittings.

As if to prove her point, Jack clicks the attachment into its final position with relative ease, ensuring that it's properly secured before leaning forward to press a warm, soft kiss to the freckled skin just above the waistband of those boxer briefs, lingering there briefly before brushing a touch lightly over the shaft of it to ensure that it's working. It's warmer than she expected, firm but with a bit of give beneath her subtly calloused fingertips.

If the way those coppery lashes flutter at that, the rim of colour around dark pupils shrinking a measure, it's working exactly as it's intended. Knowing that Moira will have a reaction to this is _dangerous knowledge_. And God, quiet is going to be a hell of a trick if the look in those mismatched eyes now is any indication of how their night is about to be spent. 

"Maybe we should go to church," Jack confesses with a quiet mirth, dark eyes glittering with it as she looks up at the taller woman. 

_She's so fucking tall_.

Moira's hands slip behind her knees and pull, drawing her from half-seated against the headboard to flat on her back, hair splayed on the pillows, in an instant. And with the languid sort of grace with which Moira does everything, one that often reminds her of a great jungle cat, that lanky frame sprawls over hers, a comfortable weight that sinks her into the mattress a scarce measure. A concession to the goosebumps on her arms, perhaps, the other woman pulls the sheets, the soft green and gray blankets back up around them.

A warm kiss finds its way to her cheek before the taller woman drawls out in a low lilt, "I'm surprised you know what church _is_. I had assumed you planned to..." There's a distinct pause, one that tells her that the other plans to be a little shit, "What was it Junkers do again? _Ride eternal, shiny and chrome?_ "

Tinted a pale lavender, a slender hand comes to rest over her mouth when she laughs at that, a low chuckle emanating from Moira in turn before the taller woman hushes her. When it slowly retreats, Jack whispers back in a quieter fashion, "Fucking try me. I'll take you to church any time, O'Deorain."

"Maybe even speak in tongues," she punctuates the statement by clicking her tongue lightly to the roof of her mouth, lifting her chin toward Moira above her in a little nod as she asserts, "If you're lucky."

" _Jacqueline_ ," the intonation of her name is chased by a husky, low laugh, and it's her turn to sneak coppery fingertips up, press them lightly to the taller woman's lips. 

The corner of her own quirk into a sly smile as she teases, "You should definitely go. Make friends with a priest. They can marry us right quick if I get caught fooling around with _someone's baby_."

She pinches Moira's cheek lightly at that for good measure, hearing and feeling the sound of amusement that emanates from the taller woman's chest in reaction. The Lord's House. If it weren't for the close call, she could almost laugh at that statement now, if it wouldn't certainly be enough to disturb the silence of the winter night. 

What she doesn't expect entirely, not really, is the husky chuckle that sounds afterwards. For those freckled features to draw nearer hers, to place a nip to her upper lip in pointed fashion before Moira confides in a voice like whiskey and velvet, "Would you like that, Jacqueline?"

The timbre alone makes her shiver, dark eyes rapt on the other woman as she attempts to discern what exactly was meant. The voice is low. It lilts. It carries a possessive note, in a way that intimately reminds her of where they are, how they are, and when warm fingertips brush over the curve of her hip and trace the line of the bone, she can't help but jolt a bit.

There's a slow, warm kiss beneath her jaw, one that teases at the pulse-point, and the self-satisfied smirk that she feels curve against the side of her neck tells her well enough that Moira feels how it's quickened. The low chuckle that sounds there sends little gusts of breath against coppery skin, and she can feel Moira's lips brush against her as the taller woman confides, "If I made a proper go of it? You could take my name."

_Jesus._

She's not sure if it's the implication or the way Moira's voice sounds now, low and with promise in the dark, but she's liable to forget _her own fucking name_ if this keeps up the way it is. Jack slides a hand up the back of the taller woman's neck, sinking her grasp into short, fiery red hair as softly, deceptively softly given the swift tilt toward hell she's just taken, another kiss finds its way to the curve of her throat.

"Everyone would know that you were mine," Moira's voice is smoke coiling above the hearth. Incense burning in a neat little box near the window in Oasis. The dark currents of a river, threatening to pull her under on its beckoning timbre alone. When it lilts lowly near the line of her jaw, it's to confide, "And I think you like being mine. Don't you, rabbit?"

"I-" Jack starts to speak, one syllable falling from her lips before her head falls back and she has to bite her lip to halt the continuation of what stays a untoward sound in the back of her throat. Because it's a rhetorical question. Because of course it is. Because the feather-light tracing of fingertips over the plane of her hip has ceased, and in its stead, one of those long, slender fingers has all but slid exactly where she wants it most, stopping just short to stroke through the wet warmth it finds instead with a languid, coaxing motion.

It feels like a current of electricity, coils at the core of her and arcs through her to the fingertips. 

"It would seem all evidence supports my claim," Moira O'Deorain is the fucking devil, she decides, listening to those words against the shell of her ear, all hot breath and smug, infuriatingly smug timbre as a second digit finds its way alongside the first and glides through in like kind. She hasn't stopped biting her lip yet. She's considering biting Moira instead as her hips roll up to chase that touch, and then it strokes in a smooth motion once again. 

Of course it was a rhetorical fucking question. Of course it was. Of course this is how it went, and those long fingers are slick already, and her breathing is torn to shreds along with any semblance of resolve she may have lied and told herself she had before she stole off down the hall into this room.

Dark eyes flutter closed when a heated warmth trails its way down the column of her neck, a scattering of open-mouthed kisses punctuated by soft bites. Her hand is threaded into the taller woman's hair, tightens subtly when the other can tell she's about to say something and nips a little harder at that, certain to leave a bruise behind with that one. 

Moira teases because Moira enjoys teasing, seeing how long it takes before she cracks. Until her fingertips start to shake. Until she's so in the moment that neither of them can really stand it. Not so secretly, she thinks - knows - that the other woman gets off on her being a mess, on the hand twined in red hair, on the fluttering of dark lashes, on the breathy please whispered to a freckled cheek. On feeling in control of where this is going, the slow, stroking rhythm of those fingers which is _criminal_ as they explore, circle, never truly slide home.

Her voice, so often smooth, is failing. It's accent is prominent, cadence frayed around the edges to leave it silk and rust as her tattooed knuckles sink further into that hair and then pull back, Moira's sculpted countenance in stark relief as mismatched eyes cast down toward her, taking in the swollen lip that she's already bitten once trying not to make a sound, the darkness of her eyes, mirrored by the taller woman's blown-black. 

What Jack says in that instant of stillness, dark gaze never leaving Moira's as her words shudder in time with an intake of breath is, "If you don't _actually fuck me_ , I'm going to scream."

The husky laugh that sounds from that fucking woman is anticipated, as is the smug, but genuine smile that curls over those infuriatingly perfect features in the moonlight. They draw down closer, until a freckled nose brushes to the bridge of her own, and a cool hand slides down her thigh to pull it further around that lithe frame. 

"Is that so, rabbit?" Moira's hair is falling forward again, almost into scarlet and blue eyes whose rim of colour is all but invisible now. Another breathy chuckle sounds, before that lanky frame shifts, all but looming above her on an elbow from the height differential when leaner hips nearly flush to her own and the slick fingertips recede in favour of the strap-on proper. Those eyes never leave hers as Moira inquires but a fraction from the corner of her mouth, that low voice indecent, "Do you promise?"

It's thick, warmed to about the temperature of the other's skin by now, likely by virtue of its tech, and with a slow, languid roll of Moira's hips, there's pressure, an exquisite, gliding sensation that there's no way for her not to focus on, and she almost bites through her fucking lip for real this time. _Fuck_. If the low, throaty groan near her ear is any indication, she isn't the only one.

_Shit fuck damn._

If Moira makes that fucking sound again, she doesn't know what she's going to do. Die, probably, with one hand buried in the other's coppery hair and the other one biting its short nails into the back of a lean, freckled shoulder. This is absolutely the worst way to go about trying to have quiet sex, Jack determines when there's another slow thrust and a sound somewhere between a pant and a quiet moan escapes her before she can stop it.

A lavender-tinted hand finds hers, the one that isn't twined impossibly in the other woman's hair, and presses it into the mattress, threading those taloned fingers, cool to the touch in sharp contrast to _everything else_ , just as slowly through her own.

"God. _Fuck_ ," it's not elegant. She rarely is, the language that punctuates the low, rolling rhythm the other settles into colourful in phrasing, running the gamut of sweetly spoken indecencies against the crook of Moira's neck as her back arches and they slip into an ebb and flow that has her hips tilting up to chase the other's whenever they shift back.

The subtly freckled, milky complexion of Moira's skin is brushed with hints of dusky silver in the greyscale the moonlight has made of them, faded shades that she knows would be pink if the lamp were on. Imbued at the tips of the ears, the sharp contour of the cheekbones, the hue paints down the marble column of Moira's throat to spread over her chest toward the navel, creeping steadily with every hot, rough gust of breath against her hair.

Jack loves it. She loves the slow, rippling tension in that long lean back, and the steady, rolling rhythm of slim hips that's starting to become irregular already, punctuated by a few errant, deep thrusts that make her back arch and breathless sounds draw up out of her. Muffled against the side of Moira's neck, where the skin tastes faintly of salt and smells of bergamot and burnt amber, a hint of smoke, it isn't as obvious. Not half as loud by far, but with the same effect. 

It's no secret that Moira can hear it, because the tempo picks up, and then she tastes copper and salt, her pulse hammering in her chest, knows that she's bitten into her lip and can't quite handle the sharpness of that in contrast to the pleasant sensation radiating from her core to reach _everywhere else_.

If she could wrap her legs any further around that slim waist, she would. Thank God the furniture is sturdy. It doesn't creak, at least not that she can hear above the harsh, shuddering sound of their breathing, the occasional low, muted sound that Moira utters into her hair, the hammering of her heart in her chest, and the soft, breathless whine that escapes her as the it all becomes too much to hold onto. 

She's close, face pressed tightly to the side of the taller woman's neck and hand slipping from fiery hair to grip there instead, hold on, knowing that her nails bite into the skin when the next thrust is deeper and she tightens around it. The taste of copper is stronger, and just as it all comes to a peak, just before it all comes undone, she sinks her teeth into the taller woman's shoulder to muffle the sound she knows is coming. 

Moira sucks in a sharp breath at that, and whatever words fall from those lips in Gaeilge are likely fit neither for church nor polite conversation, the husky, deep thrill of them enough. That's what does her in. It's hot and messy, and it feels in some ways like touching a live electrical wire, in that the breath leaves her all at once, heat blooming everywhere. 

And if she didn't understand what the taller woman said before, what follows after is incomprehensible save for the sole utterance of _fuck_ in English scattered in the midst, a few deep thrusts of the other's hips sending aftershocks through her before the words cut off in a low, muffled moan into her hair. 

Withdrawing her hand from beneath Moira's taloned one where it's held to the mattress, Jack instead slides her arms up and around that tall, lanky woman as the breath in the other's form shudders. Gentle now, careful in a way that they always are after, if not always during, she trails her fingertips slowly up and then back down the length of a freckled back. She traces the dip of a spine, brushes over the a tense muscle here or there until it relaxes, and Moira simply melts into her. 

They remain like that for a time, breathless and intertwined as her fingertips trace lightly over pale, freckled skin. When Moira does shift back, it's only to slide out of the harness and drop the whole of it over the side of the bed, back into the box, before rolling back over to nestle alongside her in the sheets. 

Jack wants to slide her fingertips into the other's hair. It's a mess, all red and copper, stricken with silver around the ends where it catches the light through the window. It's falling into those eyes again, that wine-dark and sapphirine gaze that gleams at her from behind equally coppery lashes, an she wants to reach up and brush it out of the way, trace the curve of a subtly freckled cheekbone, so she does. She can pick out every freckle that dusts over those angular features from this close, the soft light painting the sharp contours of the other's countenance with the faintest argent, leaving the freckles pewter and sterling, errant constellations in the grayscale night. 

"You look a mess," she teases quietly, the corner of her lips curling up somewhat, expression fond as she watches the other in the dim light.

"Pot, kettle," comes a low, pleased response near the line of her jaw as Moira settles up further, into the pillows beside her and nuzzles her cheek in a surprisingly gentle fashion. Cool against her overwarm skin, a taloned brushes lightly along her side, eliciting a little shiver from her. The words that fall from the taller woman's lips afterwards contradict that, "You're exquisite."

A quiet laugh escapes her at that, head turning to better face the other woman then, night-dark eyes seeking out mismatched to find them half-lid and warm when they meet her own. With the quirk of a smile, she teases softly, "That's a word."

Nestling in a bit further, Jack drapes an arm comfortably around Moira's shoulders, fingers sneaking just above the nape of the other's neck to twine idly in coppery hair, draw nails lightly along the scalp in a way that she knows the taller woman likes. 

"Did you know that your mother," Jack starts amusedly, brushing her nose lightly to a freckled one before placing a kiss to the corner of the taller woman's lips, not missing how the mismatched eyes that watch her soften a touch at that. "Asked me what my _intentions_ were with her _baby_ while you were out fetching wood?"

"And if there were going to be little O'Deorains?" she teases with a quiet laugh. The last kiss, a light peck, finds the end of a freckle-dusted nose before Jack confides with a soft sound of mirth, "I couldn't think of anything else to say so I told her _we had a cat_."

Moira's nose wrinkles in a response, whether to the statement or the peck she places to it uncertain, but that doesn't stop the smile that curves over those angular features in the dark. The tips of taloned nails, cool to the touch, trace the dip of her spine as the taller woman confides, "I did warn you that my mother was dreadfully old-fashioned."

Those coppery lashes flutter for a moment, a low, pleased sound escaping from Moira's chest as she draws her nails lightly along the back of the other's neck. She does it again, and mismatched eyes close, the other exhaling a languid breath before observing, "And having a cat _is_ an awfully large responsibility, rabbit."

"Only because you spoil her," Jack whispers back, a soft laugh following after. And isn't that the truth. If she hadn't already known that, the stack of neatly-wrapped gifts near the mantle at home, complete with instructions for Olivia to unwrap them with the cat on Christmas morning would be a damned good indicator. 

Notwithstanding the ones that are there for Barra. Somewhere beneath them, one that she watched the taller woman carefully wrap and then secret under the rest for future discovery. It has the name _Olivia_ scripted on the green and red parchment. It's sweet, really, in a way that most wouldn't expect. 

If she could turn back time. Only a little bit, she thinks. Recall back into the kitchen like Tracer, back into the early evening to answer Caitlin's questions again...Jack wonders if she would have answered them differently this time. Contemplates it at no small length as she ghosts her fingertips over the back of Moira's neck, trails them along the curve of lean, freckled shoulders. 

Because the truth of the matter is, they already have a family. It's not conventional. They've salvaged it from bits and pieces, built it up as she once would have thought only a Junker could, from all the disparate odds and ends the world has forgotten. The ones that perhaps don't work the way they were originally intended, but function otherwise all the same.

Gabriel. Olivia. Akande. Widow. That they were Moira's family long before they were hers, too, but that she loves them. Fiercely. Just like she loves Caitlin O'Deorain's daughter.

It draws her mind in other directions, tangential to the first. 

Somewhere, hidden away in one of the compartments of her military bag, is a little metal box that she checked and re-checked twenty-seven times before getting on the transport to Dublin. It's made out of part of a spent artillery shell she found in the Outback, sanded down and polished, something she made in the late hours of the night when her thoughts wandered. When she was still deciding. When she needed to keep her hands busy. 

What's in that little box is a secret only known to one other person. Sombra. And then only because the hacker was in the guest room closet, looking for _her own_ Christmas presents a week before Jack hopped on the transport. Although if Liv knows, she's sure that Widow knows, Gabe knows, Akande has an inkling. 

"Jacqueline," comes a low and surprisingly drowsy voice from the woman beside her, that low lilt cutting through her thoughts like a scalpel. It isn't long before she realizes that a lavender-tinted knuckle, cool to the touch, has tucked beneath her chin to tip it up, ever-so-slightly, or that Moira's eyes, all scarlet and sapphire and half-lid for need of sleep, are watching her in the dark. "If you were thinking any louder, I would be able to hear exactly what about."

That voice isn't any less weary, it's accent all the thicker for it, and Moira yawns once before inquiring, "What _are_ you on about, rabbit?"

_You._

_It's always been about you_.

It's an old habit by now, but one that she's true to, as best she can be. An answer for an answer means be honest. 

She is.

"I'm not ready to tell you yet," is what Jack confides quietly in return, dark eyes searching mismatched no less fondly than before. She tilts forward, if only slightly, to kiss Moira softly on the lips. Gently. Only once before she entreats, "I'm going to sneak down to the shower before I turn in. Come with me?"

There's a curious tilt to the other's head at that, but no further questions. Not just yet. 

\--- 

It takes significant effort for them to sneak down the hall into the bathroom, but they manage it, Jack careful to walk in Moira's footsteps as she trails the taller woman in the dark. Her fingertips brush lightly to the wall as they go, not that she needs to, with the other hand caught lightly in the back of Moira's shirt so as not to fall behind. It's funny in a way, sneaking through the halls in the shadows.

At least in this instance, if one of the adjacent doors opens, it's easy enough to explain away. Moira could tell them that Jack forgot the way to the bathroom. Or that lanky creature could just up and disappear and it would look like she got lost trying to find it. Lost with some wild-looking hair, perhaps, but lost all the same. It's at the very least believable. 

Thankfully, it's a moot point. She breathes easier when the bathroom door clicks shut behind them, the latch turned and the light flicked on. This would have been their habit at home, as well, but she supposes it would have been a much shorter and less stressful walk. And while the bathroom in the farmhouse isn't by any stretch of the imagination the one that Moira has in Oasis, it's still better than anything that she had in Junkertown. The amount of headroom alone was probably wrought necessary generations ago, if all these lanky fucks are this tall, she imagines.

It's an easy habit to settle into once they're there. A familiar ritual that they've kept to for as long as she can remember now. At least since Jack joined Talon.

No matter where they end up, she finds a place for a stack of clean clothes, locates the towels to set on the sink for after, rubbing her eye as she fishes a bottle of citrusy soap from her travel kit. Moira leans a shoulder against the wall once the water is on, tests it occasionally until the temperature is just so, and then moves to pull her shirt over her head, a little push toward the shower given. 

Always, that's accompanied by a warm kiss to the side of her neck. Always, before the taller woman strips out of her own clothes and follows after. 

If they were in Oasis, she'd be liable to stand in the hot water until the other woman had left the bathroom, made tea, come back to fetch her. If they were in Rialto, Moira returning from a mission out in the field, she'd do the same with far less ease and far more use of a coffee machine. In both instances, the chances would be high that there would be a moment, watching the blood and soot, the oil and metal dust as it washed down the drain, that one or the other of them looked up, flashed a little smile, and they'd know that they made it another day. Another week, month, year.

Three of them now. Almost four. Four in July.

When the bathroom has long-filled with warm steam, fragrant with the scent of orange and clove, well-after they've used more hot water than they should and spoken quietly for far too long in what she assumes must be the early morning, it all comes to a conclusion. Long, slender fingers laced with hers as they steal back down the hall toward the taller woman's room. A pleasant sinking into clean, cool sheets and a lanky frame that comes to rest to hers, arms wrapped around her waist, hers draped around the other's neck, one hand threading through soft, coppery tresses still a bit damp from the shower as Moira's cheek nestles to her chest. 

The door is locked, the snow still softly falling over Glendalough when sleep finally finds her. 

She dreams, for the first time, of a white Christmas. One that's bracingly cold, a sharp juxtaposition to the shimmering heat of Junkertown in December.


	5. heart beats slow 'til i'm on the rise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ** Soft Christmas gays  
> ** Jack is literally too gay to function like twelve times  
> ** Crying  
> ** More crying  
> ** Not listening to your parents  
> ** Disastrous flirting

It isn't usual for her to be the first one awake in the morning.

Were she more coherent at the moment, Jack would almost assuredly blame it on it being _Christmas morning_. Because that's typical. Rooted deep. An old habit that stems somewhat from self-preservation and somewhat from Junkertown. Because as far back as she can remember, she has always been the first stop for her little brothers on Christmas. Barely light out, even with ordinance sounding in the distance, they'd shake her from a dead sleep, drag her down the hall to sit near the makeshift tree - all cobbled together from scrap and strung with blinking lights - to supervise the opening of presents to the low hum of the jukebox in the corner. 

She honestly can't remember the last time her mother or father were present on Christma morning, the one so often busy with patrols so the rest of the flats can enjoy theirs, the other usually working to ensure the power grid stays up for similar reasons. It always fell to her to watch the boys, since they were old enough to walk, at least into the early afternoon when one or another of her parents drifts back in. Well through the unboxing of gifts and the obligatory breakfast of a flat Nanocola and some frozen toaster waffles. 

That make today different, awake with the grey winter sun hazily drifting through the curtains, warm in a bed that smells of bergamot and burnt amber and the warm frame beside her, subtly of soap. Listening to the steady rise and fall of the other's breathing beneath her cheek, where she's nestled into the soft fabric of a a sleepshirt and the warmth of the shoulder beneath it. It's still snowing, and she watches it for a time as it alights in the fir trees, thinking that winter outside Dublin is its own manner of charming, as long as you're inside with the people you love. 

And she does love her. Has for a long time now.

Jack has loved her for far longer than she should have, but can't pinpoint the exact moment it happened. Gradual, in slow increments. But somewhere between the canalside in Rialto, the low-lit lab in Oasis, busy or rushed, or in a soft, hushed silence in between, curled up on the couch in the late afternoon or the early hours of the morning, she knows a husky laugh and a low, lilting voice had started to sound like home until it was all that felt like it. 

It hasn't all been easy. In fact, much of it hasn't been. But as she leans up on an elbow, dark hair spilling over her shoulder, to look down at the other woman's countenance in the pale winter light, she knows that it was worth it. All of it. All the blood lost between them, the smoke and metal, the lonely nights miles and months apart, wondering if it would all work out. If they'd walk in the door, toss down their bag, and there'd be someone there waiting for them, a candle in the window burning, beckoning, whispering _please come home_. 

Wondering when the comm chimes in the dead of night, _Will it be you?_. Or will this be the time that it's Gabe. Kamaka. Their voices wrought to ash and rust, rasping like smoke that _You won't be coming at all_. That the life we live finally cost too much, took its price in flesh and bone. _Yours, but also mine, because if it did we both know it took my heart with it_.

She ducks her head then, presses a feather-light kiss to the other's brow, lets it linger there for several seconds before drawing back. Traces the sharp line of a jaw only just so with her fingertips, rests them there gently when a second kiss, just as chaste, finds a freckled cheek. There's a subtle stirring then, a slow intake of breath and a languid exhale that tells her the taller woman is starting to wake. A craning of those angular features, so peaceful in between slumber and the waking world, into her touch. 

It makes her fingertips feel warm, a dull ache take root in her chest. 

Light enough to barely be felt, she caresses the other's jaw with the pad of her thumb, watches through dark lashes as a sculpted countenance turns into her hand, Moira's breath warm against her palm. Coppery lashes stir in turn, but never quite open, and a voice low from sleep, it's accent like green waves on a rocky shore, whispers there, "Jacqueline."

What Jack whispers back, softly, warmly against a freckled cheek, is, " _Tá mo chroí istigh ionat_."  
** I love you/literal: My heart is within you

The words are worlds less elegant, less graceful than Moira would speak them, the accent all wrong, but at the soft sound she hears from the other woman and the softer smile that curls the corner of those lips, they are worth the time it took to ensure she got them right. 

"You've been practicing," comes a quiet response, the words a little slow, subtly raspy with sleep still, and when the corner of that faint smile curls a bit further, the warmth in her fingertips blooms in her chest as well. 

She casts a look over those freckled features, studies the way that they are now, at ease, relaxed, content. Tips in slowly, to only just brush a kiss to Moira's lips, gentle but undeniably warm. Coppery lashes flutter once more, slip open to reveal a sliver of scarlet and sapphire, and she can't help but to smile at that, biting her lower lip as if it held any chance to mask it when she meets the other's gaze. 

" _Maidin mhaith_ ," Jack confides softly thereafter, dark eyes fond upon mismatched, her thumb stroking lightly over the line of a pale jaw. 

"Now you're just showing off," Moira murmurs, the words undercut by _that fucking smile_ , and the way that a tall, lanky frame stretches slowly, languidly amidst the sheets before relaxing contently amidst the pillows once more. A warm hand lifts to tuck a lock of dark hair behind her ear, comes to rest comfortably alongside her neck afterwards.

"Maybe a little," the Junker counters with a soft amusement, leaning up to brush another gentle, chaste kiss to Moira's brow and hearing a content exhalation at that. 

It's followed by a drowsy, if thoughtful hum, the taller woman inquiring, "What's this?" 

She stills suddenly, if only for a moment, at feeling fingertips catch in the fine silver chain around her neck, one hand sliding up the other's forearm to catch a pale, physician's hand at the wrist, halt it from drawing the chain from beneath her borrowed shirt. 

Not yet.

It hadn't been hard to secret it out of the little artillery-casing box last night, where it had been for safe-keeping while they traveled. Not while Moira was busy with stripping the bed and remaking it for the night, shaking out the blankets atop it, adding a few more so she'd keep warm in a way that was painfully domestic. It had been less difficult to decide to put it on, though she hadn't counted on the other woman noticing so swiftly. It doesn't change things.

She doesn't release the wrist in her grasp, meets and holds eyes of scarlet and blue for a moment, her thumb rubbing a light circle on the other's skin once the chain is dropped. Tilting her head to the side a scarce measure, she confides softly, "That's an answer for an answer."

Her hand slips further up, lacing tattooed fingers through long, slender ones as her gaze returns to Moira's, seeing not only a drowsy curiosity but also a distinct fondness there. She draws that hand closer, brushes her lips to to the knuckles of it before observing, "And you have to answer mine first."

"Do I now?" the taller woman drawls out. She can tell that Moira is starting to wake up because hint of a smirk is starting to show, and an arm, cooler than it should be despite having been under the blankets, has draped languidly around her hips at that. 

Jack keeps ahold of Moira's other hand, drawing it up to nuzzle her cheek against the back of it, holding it there as she casts an amused look down upon freckled features. 

"Yeah," she answers, wrinkling her nose faintly as her smile takes on a mischievous curl. "And that counted. Now you owe me two."

A husky laugh, a little rough around the edges from sleep, sounds from Moira at that, one that reaches those mismatched eyes and shifts that smirk into a half a grin instead. As it fades, the reverbrations of it felt where they touch, the taller woman intones with seeming good humour, "Get on with it, then."

"What would you think..." Jack observes, relinquishing her hold on the other's hand to instead lean over her on both elbows, her hair spilling over one shoulder in a dark curtain to block some of the light from the window, cast a shadow over freckle-dusted features. She leans in, pressing a soft, warm kiss to the curve of Moira's lips, one that lingers for a moment, leaves her own tingling subtly. Night-dark eyes holding mismatched as they slip slowly back open afterwards, heady behind coppery lashes, she whispers, "About making a proper go of it? You and me."

There's a distinct pause there, the subtle tilt of the other's head as Moira searches her gaze and inquires simply, "What are you on ab-"

Her heart feels like it's beating so fast now. There's a hint of old fear that rises in her at that. Tastes like blackpowder and sharp metal beneath her tongue. _What if she says no?_ it whispers. It's an insidious thought and she pushes it down, back where it belongs, in the back of her mind where it can do less harm. Cut less deeply with all its infinite possibilities.

There's a part of her that wonders if Moira can hear it, too, like the thundering of her heart in chest. If the other can see the warmth that's already started to build in the corners of her eyes, that she's failing to blink away. That sooner than later, will spill over, break like the summer rains over red stone cliffs. Her fingertips are shaking when she finds the silver chain around her neck, draws it carefully from beneath her borrowed shirt.

The rings clink softly together when she does.

And suddenly at that, it's so quiet and so still that she thinks they might hear a pin being dropped even so far off as Junkertown. Pulled from a grenade, perhaps, and she's holding it. Wondering if it will be dormant, safe, or if it will catch in a blaze of glory that takes her with it, a howling cacophony of shrapnel and fire. All she knows for certain now is that Moira has gone wholly still, scarlet and blue eyes fixated for an instant on what rests on that chain of fine silver links, before flicking back up to meet hers, and the other woman looks _lost_. 

"I never really thought about...," is what Jack starts to breathe out in the early winter morning, not realizing until she sees a droplet hit the curve of a freckled cheekbone, slide down it, that she's crying. _Stellar_. She's all too aware of it now, feels her next breath shudder in her lungs before she manages to whisper in a voice thick with emotion, " _Until you, I didn't know home could be a person._ And God, I don't know if finder's keepers applies to people, but if it does..."

" _You have no idea how much I want to keep you_ ," another tear falls, and she swipes at her eye, murmuring as she does, "Fuck, I'm terrible at this." 

And then she simply breathes in, breathes out, asks in the steadiest, softest voice she can muster, which is little of the former and almost too much of the latter, barely audible, "Marry me?"

If Moira's countenance, it's sculpted contours wholly unreadable in a way she doesn't know what to do with, is any indication, this is _the furthest thing_ from what the geneticist envisioned occurring on their holiday in Glendalough as is humanly imaginable. She's fairly certain that the taller woman _doesn't even breathe_ , but simply stares at her for _she doesn't even know how long_ , unblinking, those wine-red and sapphirine eyes widening perceptibly at the corners. 

She loses track of the seconds as they tick by in silence, starts to wonder if perhaps Moira didn't hear her. If her voice broke a little too much for the words, or her accent proved perhaps a little too strong. Jack thinks about asking again. Almost does, except when she sinks back slightly to do it, rakes a trembling hand through her dark hair to settle her nerves, what falls from her lips is not so much a coherent string of words as it is a nervous laugh. 

When her dark eyes fall from the other's, several seconds pass before the taller woman shifts, a hand felt as it slides down her jaw, tucks a knuckle beneath her chin to draw her attention back. Those sculpted features are tinged with pink here and there now, stained in rose at the cheekbones to draw out the dusting of freckles there all the more. Jack wants to say something, anything at all to break the silence, but when a thumb brushes over her cheek and her gaze lifts to meet the other's once more, her words catch in her throat. 

She can see the moisture beaded in coppery lashes; suspended there, it catches what fragile light shines through the frost-limned window in the winter morning, and it steals her breath away like it never even belonged to her. 

_Was there ever a time that I didn't want to be yours?_

Vividly scarlet and blue, Moira's gaze searches hers as the silence finally, finally breaks between them with a low, " _Cad a dhéanfaidh mé a dhéanamh leatsa?_ "

** What am I going to do with you

"I don't..." her voice falters. When did it start to sound so small. Her throat cleared softly, Jack licks her lips as if that may help, tastes salt on them. Says nothing else.

_I don't know what that means_.

As if in answer, the mattress dips as that lean frame shifts up on an elbow, freckled features scarcely a hair's-breadth from her own. Moira closes the distance the final measure, and it all culminates in a soft kiss, only just felt at the apex of her upper lip, where she knows a scar carves just into the skin above. 

It's achingly familiar. Reminds her of so long ago, in Rialto, when a featherlight touch sought out each scar and treated it the same. Of another in Oasis, when they found others, the kind that don't leave a mark on the skin. When they saw each other, really saw, and neither of them looked away. When it all started, really started for them.

Moira's voice is so low, it's timbre so thick with emotion that she nearly misses it. A hushed confession of, "Yes," spoken there, whispered with the reverence of a prayer. Again, as if she may have missed it, "Yes."

" _Ná caoin_ ," follows in that low lilt, quiet still. And she doesn't need to know what that means. Dark lashes flutter, and when her eyes fall closed for but a moment, the other woman tips up, the lightest kiss finding first the lid of one and then the other. It tells her enough. But it's far, far too late not to.  
** Don't cry

So she slides her arms around those lean shoulders, turns her head into the column of Moira's neck, where the skin carries the scent of bergamot and burnt amber even still, and stays there. When the other sinks back onto the mattress once more, they take her with them, and the taller woman's arms wrap around her tightly in turn. 

Now there's a low, lilting voice in her ear as Moira slips into fluent Gaeilge, quiet words that roll like emerald waves on a rocky shore. Ones that she cannot fathom the meaning of, but whose warm timbre speaks volumes as to their sentiment all the same. There's cool fingertips, the barest tracery of taloned nails beneath her shirt as they trail slowly, gently up her back and then down once more. Who can tell how long they stay like that, content simply to be close, regain some semblance of composure in the early winter morning. 

She shifts back eventually, reaches up for the chain, certain that the clasp won't be feasible with her shaky fingers, and simply jerks once, sharply, to break the delicate filaments and release the bands there into her hand. They feel heavy in her palm, warm from their place between the shirt and her skin. 

"Why are there two, rabbit?" comes a low query from the woman beside her, Moira's mismatched gaze uncharacteristically limned in red, freckled countenance touched with a hint of pink at the cheekbones most prominently, the shell of the ears. 

Sliding the smaller of the two bands onto her own finger, Jack holds her hand out for Moira's, confides as she does so. "Here. I'll show you."

It took her weeks to figure out how to make it work. In the end, Satya had stepped in to assist with the bit of hardlight it took to make the finished product function as intended, add a bit of architectural flair to the piece that she knew that Moira would find aesthetically pleasing. It had used all the foundations of their med work, the same technology utilized to stabilize the branching implants that run up the taller woman's arm. 

It used the last of their omnium-synthesized titanium, the original sphere from Junkertown, a clever bit of hardlight, and some cutting edge tech. But it worked. Aesthetically simple, hers is smooth, a blackwashed metal that reflects little light. The one she slides onto Moira's finger, her trembling hands threatening to betray her even now, is amber and honey, washed in a warmth of gold. She stares at it for a minute, feels it in her chest somewhere. 

"All you have to do is..." Jack looks from the one band to the other, then up, meets the other's gaze to confide, "It's synced to Aro. Tell it to find home. I set yours in Gaeilge so it would be harder to trip accidentally if you were in the office."

That elicits a thoughtful hum, a little nod before Moira intones lowly, "Aro, _aimsigh baile_."  
** Find home

At the centre of the band, the metal shifts apart in a thin line to reveal composed, geometric patterns in a sharp contrast of scarlet and cobalt blue hard-light, brightening subtly until it casts a dim illumination over the blankets. She knows how it works. The slow power-up. The rapid-fire data transfer over kilometers, or in this case, mere centimeters to emit a soft thrumming sound as it relays biometric feedback. First one beat. Then another, the light dimming and brightening in time.

Jack can tell from the expression that touches those sculpted features that it's familiar, the sound. It should be, with the other's extensive medical background. But in case what it was transmitting through light and the soft vibration of the metal could in any way be mistaken, she takes a pale, marble-firm hand in her own and draws it nearer, places the fingertips lightly over her heart.

How long had it taken her to sync it for this? To read the beating of a heart and replicate so seamlessly from the source through a band of metal and hardlight. Hours. Days. Weeks. Two months late at night in the machine shop, in the lab after hours, awake with burning eyes when she should be asleep in her bunk in Rialto. All worth it.

There's a slow, shuddering intake of breath from the taller woman at that, and something in Moira's expression quite simply breaks. It isn't slow, or in increments. It's sudden, a sharp inhale in which the other's thumb brushes gently there, mismatched eyes glistening in the light. She has never seen Moira cry. Not once. Not on the brink of death. Here, nestled away in a farmhouse in Glendalough, it spills over, first a lone tear that slips slowly down a freckled cheek. Then another, and those sculpted features carry more than a subtle hint of pink now.

"Jacqueline," is all that Moira says then, voice thick with emotion. 

When Jack draws her arms around the other to gently pull them in, there's no protest. It's welcomed, a respite needed and a solace found. Her cheek nestled into fiery red hair, Jack does little more than cradle Moira's head to her chest, feeling the warmth of the other's breath through the soft fabric of her shirt, the subtle patches of damp where the tears she didn't expect haven't even begun to dry yet. 

\---

The second time that Jack wakes up on Christmas morning, it's to the sharp sound of knuckles rapping on the door. She starts to move on instinct before there's a soft, shushing sound from above her and warm fingertips thread into her hair, stroking there in a soothing fashion. A glimpse of gold on one of them tells her that it wasn't all a dream, and she breathes a little easier at that.

She's not really certain when she dozed off or for how long, but it was a long trip from Junkertown, and it doesn't necessarily surprise her. Long enough for Moira to have found coffee, that lanky frame seated at the headboard with a fresh mug and a datapad, mismatched eyes reading over what she can only presume is the morning news.

Black spectacles perch upon a freckled nose, the scarlet and blue gaze behind them warm when it falls on her. It doesn't look up at the sound of the knock, but seems to wait for the question that follows. 

"Moira, _mo stór_ ," it's Caitlin's voice that drifts through the hardwood. "Your brothers and I are headed to service. Have you seen Jacqueline? It looked like she was already up when I went to collect Lena."

The corner of the taller woman's lips curls slightly. 

"She's in here," Moira calls back as if it were nothing, blowing gently on the coffee in her mug before taking a modest swallow of the bitter, black liquid. A thoughtful hum escapes the taller woman, followed by the smooth lie of, "She was up early. We're having coffee."

The sound of the doorknob turning and being halted by the lock is evident. 

"If you intend to be in there, I would thank you to keep the door open," Caitlin counters from the hallway, a note of disapproval having crept back into the older woman's voice.

Moira chuckles lowly, shifts out of bed to toss the datapad onto the nearby dresser, and stretches slowly, carefull not to spill any coffee as she does. Clad in a heather gray t-shirt and warm, dark trousers for sleep, that lanky frame looks comfortable and Jack finds herself wishing it was back in bed already. Nonetheless, when the other bends to place a warm kiss to her cheek, then place the coffee mug carefully into her hands, presumably to sell the farce, that's pretty good, too.

Her hands curl around it in any case, and she relishes the additional warmth.

With the soft sound of footsteps across the room followed by the creak of the door, she can pick out the lilting sound of conversation in that general vicinity, much of it in Gaeilge, though it's punctuated by Moira's succinct, "It's cold for her. It's summer in Australia." Then, somewhat more fondly and less defensively, "Certainly. Have a pleasant morning at church, Máthair."

Once footsteps have retreated down the hall once more, she hears the door close in direct contrast to the elder O'Deorain's wishes, latch once more, before the taller woman pads back toward the bed and climbs in with her. There's a soft dip in the mattress when Moira sprawls back out, shoulders settling comfortably back to the headboard once more, and a slender hand retrieves the mug from her own and takes another sip from it. 

"I liked it better when you were under the covers," Jack murmurs sleepily, dark eyes already half-closed once more. She shifts nearer to the other's side, nestling her cheek there comfortably in any case. It's warm, if not as warm as it as before, and her fingers are a little more toasty from holding onto the mug. 

"We must all make sacrifices," comes the response, Moira sounding vaguely amused and rather fond in the same note.

"Mm," Jack replies simply at that, finding very little to complain about when long fingers thread back into her hair and start to idly stroke through it once more. A contented sound made in the back of her throat, she allows her eyes to fall closed once more, though asks drowsily nonetheless, "Liv call already?"

"Olivia," Moira starts, the manner in which the words are punctuated telling her that the other is more entertained than annoyed by what's to follow. "Was kind enough to wait until...precisely 7:00AM to send me vids of her opening all of her presents at 12:01 this morning. Which is remarkable restraint for her, really."

Passing her over the comm, Moira adds idly, "She sent a vid if you wish to review it. I had to call her back and tell her that frisbee in the house was unacceptable, regardless of how much Barra _likes it_." There's a low sound of disapproval, "Not that I expect that she'll actually listen. And given that LaCroix is staunchly refusing to shoot her as my Christmas gift, we may be lucky to have a home to return to."

"There's always that little bunker in Junkertown," Jack counters with a soft sound of amusment, stretching a little before rubbing her eye with the heel of her hand. Opening the comm, she muses, "I'll even carry you over the threshold and everything."

That elicits a husky laugh from the taller woman. 

As the sound of boisterous voices fades downstairs, a door shutting perhaps a bit too loud before the remainder of the household piles into the car, Jack glances up at the taller woman and immediately asks, "Come back to bed?"

"I'm in bed," Moira observes with dry humor, taking another sip of coffee. 

"You're _on the bed_ , not _in bed_ , you right shit," Jack protests around a yawn, exhaling slowly before she reaches over to catch the hem of Moira's shirt. With a little pull, only in so much as to catch the taller woman's attention, she waits until mismatched eyes meet her own darker and states with a hint of mischief, "You really just going to let me be cold, babe? On Christmas?"

"Typically, Jacqueline," the taller woman begins, a hint of mirth touching her freckled features in the early morning light. "One is supposed to be good for an entire year in order to get what they want on Christmas. But if you can name three good things you accomplished, I may consider it."

There's a brief pause, before Moira corrects, showing the appropriate number of fingers in emphasis, "Four, with consideration that you _bit me_ last evening."

Jack reaches up further, tugging lightly at the taller woman's sleeve to reveal nary a mark on the curve of a pale, freckled shoulder, and observes, "You don't have any proof. _And_. You aren't allowed to gripe about biting. Ever. Also, I asked you to marry me. That should be worth something."

When Moira's hand moves from her hair to her cheek, pushing her lightly away, however, she turns her head and clicks her teeth together pointedly, which merely leads to the swift withdrawal of them from her face and a little shove to her shoulder instead.

"Five," Moira adds blithely.

"Ugh," comes a response from Jack after a moment, as she burrows further into the blankets, pulling them up around her ears to complain, "What are you, the Christmas police?"

Then, with a soft snort of amusement, she adds fondly, "I'm going back to sleep. Wake me up for the New Year."

Jack has all but dozed back off when there's a shift to the mattress, the sound of a ceramic mug being slid onto the wood of the bedside stand. With the brief chill of quilts being drawn back from her, a tall, lanky frame comes to settle to her back, an arm draping around her comfortably as Moira's head tucks over hers on the pillows. It isn't long before sleep pulls her back under once again. 

\--- 

The third time that Jacqueline Vargas wakes up on Christmas, it's carefully bundled in the centre of the bed, sans the lanky frame that had been nestled there with her for most of the morning. An extra quilt has been thrown over the top of the others, presumably drawn down from the closet to keep her warm. With a glance sidelong at the beside stand, she places that the mug is gone.

"Aro, what time is it?" she asks in a voice rough from sleep. 

"The time is eleven forty-five AM," comes the tinny response from her comm, set atop the nearby dresser.

That means that Moira is already well up and busy with something. It also means that there are a few hours until the O'Deorain family returns from Christmas service and the subsequent small gathering afterwards. They have the old farmhouse outside of Dublin to themselves.

She wonders if there's coffee waiting downstairs. 

Maybe she'll check in five more minutes.

Almost an hour later, feeling perhaps excessively chipper after the morning's events and an extended sleeping in, Jack heads downstairs, hair still damp from the shower and the clove and citrus of machineshop soap clinging to her still.

It's warmer now. Not warm enough to _not_ be wearing a few layers, hence the gray hoodie and the light, white-patterned jacket that she's thrown on over the top of it. Salt flats camo, ALF issue. It still has a little, faded patch that reads _W. Vargas_ on one side. Black joggers and wool socks complete her attire for the day, and while the latter are warm enough, she still considers fetching her boots as she draws past the coat closet and into the kitchen. 

Mischief doesn't rear its head, not truly, until she sees the tall frame leaned over the counter, freckled nose buried in what she has to assume is a cookbook. Someone's been busy, she realizes, the kitchen significantly warmer than the remainder of the house and carrying the pervasive aroma of baking sweets, holiday roast, cinnamon and pastries. 

She doesn't really think twice about it. Moseying up behind that lanky form, just as she would at home, her hands sliding into the back pockets of the other's trousers and applying a firm pressure, even as her chin finds the back of a lean shoulder.

With a cheeky little smile, the Junker nips the other's shoulder lightly through the back of the shirt, opening with a fond murmur of, "Better watch your ass, O'Deorain."

Clicking her tongue to the roof of her mouth, she adds in a smooth, warm cadence thereafter, "You keep looking that gorgeous in the morning, a girl's liable to take you upstairs and let you ride her like Seabiscuit."

Several things happen in rapid succession at that.

One - She watches a vibrant flush of red creep up the back of a freckled neck toward the hairline, feeling more than a little smug at the hue that overtakes the shell of the taller woman's ears. 

Two - That head turns a scant measure towards her, revealing freckled, neatly bearded features that _do not belong to Moira_ and the most incredulous look she has ever seen in blue eyes in her entire life.

Three - They stare at each other, unblinkingly for almost a full minute.

_Connor_.

She just told Connor that she'd let him ride her like Seabiscuit.

She just bit Moira's fucking brother on the back of the shoulder, groped his ass, and made inappropriate commentary about a racehorse.

_Oh god._

This is why they don't let Junkers out into the public.

She jerks her hands back, nearly jumping out of her skin, and rakes a hand through her dark hair as a wholly _uncomfortable_ amount of heat flushes her coppery features. The first thing that comes to her mind is, "You uh...You aren't Moira."

It sounds more accusatory than she'd intended.

_God fuck_.

"I uh...I am not - in fact - Moira, no," is what Connor hedges, his accent impossibly thick and sharp, freckled countenance about as red as she's certain she is at the moment. He opens his mouth as if to speak further, then simply closes it, a low chuckle escaping him before he scratches the scruff at the line of his jaw. "Seabiscuit, huh?"

It isn't long before an all too familiar smile curls over his features, and he counters with seeming amusement, "What about Secretariat? Man o' War?"

Not able to come up with _any_ response to that, Jack falls dead silent for several seconds before offering a little wave and a strangled, "Morning, Connor."

As if to fill the silence, she forces a smile and quips lightly, "Nice weather out, yeah? Real snowy." She jerks a thumb toward the door thereafter, asserting a little more smoothly, "I have to...go be...well, not here, mate. Maybe change my name and move out of country. Have a great life. IT was nice meeting you."

Taking a few slow steps back towards the door, Jack offers another little wave, her ears burning as she turns to head back towards the stairs, ascending them one at a time as she stuffs her hands into her jacket pockets. It doesn't take her long to make her way back down toward Moira's room, and while she leaves the door open, as per Caitlin's request, she treads slowly toward the side of the bed and then tips forward onto it, resting there face-down for an indefinite period of time.

That's where she is almost twenty minutes later when she hears footsteps in the doorway, a familiar gait that carries a lanky, copper-haired woman over toward her. There's a dip in the mattress as that tall frame settles, half beside her and half over, leaned up on the elbows. 

"Are you intent on staying in bed all day?" comes a low, lilting question, fingertips drawn over the back of her neck to shift dark hair out of the way before Moira ducks to place a kiss to the nape of it. "I had considered I might make you breakfast if you came downstairs."

"That sounds like it requires moving," Jack answers in a murmur, turning her head to the side a bit and certain that her ears are still more than a little pink when she feels a finger lightly trace the shell of one. "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas, Jacqueline," Moira answers with a low chuckle, the scent of cold, crisp air, cologne, and cigarette smoke following when the taller woman's chin comes to rest on her shoulder. "It would necessitate moving, yes."

Jack makes a noncommittal sound in response, reaching up to pull the hood of her sweater over when it looks like the other may trace her burning ears again. There's a low sound of amusement from the taller woman at that, and it isn't long before cool fingertips slide beneath the hem of her sweater to trace an idle little pattern on coppery skin there. 

"God, your hands are _fucking freezing_ ," Jack asserts, a shiver running through her as she twists around, trying to extricate herself from the taller woman's hold. Succeeding in turning onto her back, she catches slim wrists, one warm and one cool to the touch, but wrinkles her nose when Moira simply smirks and nuzzles a cold countenance to her cheek and laments with a quiet laugh as she tries to push the other back, "Get off me. Why are you like this?"

"Someone I know insists that it's because I am a youngest child, but who can tell for sure?" Moira responds lowly against her cheek, a husky chuckle sounding there soon after. There's an almost _audible_ smirk in the other's voice when the taller woman manages to free one hand from her grasp, sneaking it beneath the sweater to rest along her side once more. "I could fetch my _riding_ gloves if that would be more to your liking. Perhaps once my hands are a bit warmer."

"Oh, for _fuck's sake_ ," Jack asserts laughingly as they tussle amidst the quilts, managing with no small amount of effort and what she suspects is a concession on the taller woman's part to reverse their positions. Settling upon slim hips and leaning over Moira, she laces their fingers together to prevent another attempt at putting them on her skin, biting her lip to not quite mask a grin as she looks down at the other. "Did you come up here just to torture me?"

"I came up here because Connor called me _Junker Jockey_ , actually," Moira drawls out in a low, rather smug lilt, mismatched eyes bearing a warm amusement as they look up from behind coppery lashes. "A curious little nickname, is it not? I don't suppose you have any idea how that came about?"

Her ears are burning now, more than a fair amount of crimson anointing her coppery complexion as she watches a smirk curl over the freckled countenance of the woman beneath her. Jack tilts her head to one side, dark hair spilling over her shoulder as she does, and responds in a cheeky cadence belied by the flush to her features, "Nope."

A husky laugh sounds from Moira at that, one that reverberates from the chest and that she feels the vibrations of where they're touching. It's wild about the edges, easy in the same way that smile is. She loves it, fiercely, unconditionally. 

The curl to the corner of Moira's lips more pronounced, decidedly more smug with the words, the taller woman drawls out, "A pity. I suppose I will have to forgo...how did he say it, again?" There's a brief pause in which the other appears to mull something over before asserting drily, "Ah. _Ride her like Seabiscuit_ , I believe were his _exact_ words."

Something between a groan and a laugh escapes Jack at that statement, the prickling heat beneath her skin not diminishing. With a readjustment of her hands to ensure she keeps ahold of Moira's, their fingers laced together still as the other tries to slip them free, she leans forward a little further, down and in to place a light peck to the end of a freckled nose. 

Wrinkling her own slightly, even as the corner of her lip twitches up, she asserts, "God, bold of you to assume I'm ever fucking you again at this rate, mate."

A heady contrast in wine-dark scarlet and ephemeral blue, that mismatched gaze remains on hers, a perfect brow lifting subtly before the other counters in a low lilt, one that carries a little too much wicked mirth to it, "I suppose you can let me know when you feel like _getting back in the saddle_ , then."

Sinking back at that, Jack narrows her eyes faintly as she observes the lankier woman, scrutinizing those sculpted features for several seconds before she asserts, "Puns? I should kick your lanky ass right out in the snow for that." She clicks her tongue to the roof of her mouth pointedly, tacking on, "We're breaking up. I'm keeping Sombra."

There's a calculating glance over her at that, one that she reads into, sees the implications of only an instant before they come to fruition, having just enough time to voice with a current of laughter, "Moira O'Deorain, don't you fucking _dare_."

But it's too little, too late, and as that lanky creature pushes up from the mattress, Jack finds herself embroiled in an altogether amiable scrap atop it. One that she is assuredly losing, if the number of times cold fingertips make contact with her warm skin is any indication, at least until she manages to scramble backwards and off the mattress.

Hitting the floor with very little grace, the Junker no sooner finds leverage on the hardwood than bolts for the door, only just avoiding the long fingers that try to catch in the back of her jacket. Tearing around the doorframe this time, her feet thrum lightly on the hardwood as she darts down the hall, both hands finding the wooden railing to vault neatly over it and land lightly on her feet in the living room below.

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick. 

Gabe had teased her about that once. 

The culmination of a youth spent surviving omnics and scrappers in the Outback, a few years with Talon's strike team, and subsequent genetic enhancements courtesy of her favourite mad scientist. She was still convinced that was only because they needed someone short enough to clamber through the Volskya's vents, which had been even fucking colder than Dublin.

Jumping over the back of the couch, she's almost made it to the coat closet when long arms materialize from black smoke around her, all but pinning her there with surprising efficacy for someone so tall. 

Moira has several advantages at this point, in such close quarters. One, being so bloody _tall_ that when those arms squeeze tighter and lift, Jack's feet _aren't touching the ground_ as they start to slide toward the front door. Two, that Jack can't get too scrappy about it in a fancy Dubliner house and risk breaking some antique family heirloom or some shit. Three, Moira _cheats_. 

"Babe, I swear to god," Jack breathes out when the door swings open and bitterly cold air blows in along with a bit of snow. "Babe. _Babe?_ "

"It's only a little bit of snow, Jacqueline," comes a teasing response near her ear, warm in the sudden chill as the other pulls her out onto the front step, then takes another slow step down, until they're on the path beside freshly-shoveled snow. "It's not as if you've seen a bloody ghost."

When she tries to make a break for it, almost climbing up and over the taller woman's shoulder like a spider monkey, Jack ends up with one arm wrapped tightly around her shoulder and chest and the other curled around her legs to hold her off the ground like a fucking log.

"I'm about to see a fucking ghost if you..." That's enough to do it, unfortunately. There's a brief moment in which her stomach drops because she's been _let go of_ , and Moira simply tosses her into a bank of soft, white, unspeakably cold powder. 

All the breath goes out of her at once, icy crystals clinging in her hair and stinging her lungs. as she flounders about for a minute before finding her footing. In her _socks_. If it were the Outback, out in the shimmering desert heat, she might have rolled up her sleeves. It's far too cold for that. 

Instead, Jack blows a strand of snow and ice-crusted hair out of her face, features already red from the wind, and announces, "You're dead, O'Deorain."


End file.
